Lady T-birds fall to CAC Vaqueras, 3 games left until ACCAC playoffs
Jeff Moses
The lady T-birds got off to a rocky start on Feb. 11 going down 5 to the Central Arizona College Vaqueras before putting their first points on the board.The ladies of Mesa looked a bit sluggish and took well over 2 minutes to score.
But once they opened up scoring it was only a matter of minutes before they were ahead 9-5 with 14 minutes and 14 seconds left in the first half.
With 11:42 to go in the half and the Thunderbirds down 2 sophomore forward Alli Gloyd recorded one of her team leading 2 steals and took the ball straight to the hoop laying it in to tie the game at 16 apiece.
With the half winding down Sophomore point guard Isadora Perisic committed a costly foul on a 3-point shooter who not only hit the 3 but also hit the foul shot to finish the 4-point play. But Perisic quickly atoned for her mistake with a timely steal that she brought up court and turned into 2 of her 5 total points.
The star of MCC’s first half was freshman guard Kalasia Green who laid down an astonishing 14 first half points along with 4 rebounds and a steal.
“We left her open. You leave shooters open they’re going to hit.” Said CAC head coach Denise Cardenas. “She got some open looks, it’s February you better nail them.”
The T-birds went into the half tied at 26 with the no. 3 ranked team in Division 1.
The ladies of Mesa came out strong to start the second half and went up 32-26 before the Vaqueras could score, but CAC came back and with 16 minutes to go in the game were up 36-32.
The T-birds did not retake the lead the rest of the afternoon but stayed close with the visitors not letting them jump out by more than 10 points.
“Cori (Stevenson) always has a good game plan”, said Cardenas. “They did a great job they didn’t leave our shooters open at all we to earn every penny.”
Green shined with 17 points and 5 rebounds and forward Jade Wilson turned in a very impressive double double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
MCC fell to Central Az 68 to 57even though they shot better in every statistical category then their opponent.
The ladies of Mesa’s win loss record is 18-7 at press time and they are 11-5 in the ACCAC, with only 3 games left the T-birds hope to finish up strong and enter the playoffs with a full head of steam.
The ladies of Mesa will be traveling to Phoenix to take on the Phoenix College bears today (Feb. 21) at 7:30 p.m.
