RESEDA, CA – A lot of excitement surrounded both teams’ West Valley League opener on Wednesday – it was a home game for Cleveland, which could have quite possibly given the Cavaliers the slight advantage, but Granada Hills and their returning nine seniors, had other plans.

The first quarter opened with Cleveland securing the opening tip off, which after some back and forth, led to their junior guard Daryl Bahingire, scoring the first field goal of the game. The next possession saw Granada’s Araceli Gonzalez fouled and went to the line to shoot two – evening the early score at 2-2. 

It wasn’t until there were five minutes left in the first when the Highlanders started to dominate. Sophomore Alana Yeck, made their next field goal. Gonzalez went up and received the and-one foul, converting her free throws. Cleveland’s sophomore guard Melanie Paz was fouled and made one of two free throws, which brought the Cavaliers to the three points they would accumulate in the quarter. Granada Hills’ Alyssa Badua took an inbounds pass, shot and made the three making the score 3-9 and, from there on, the Highlanders scored the next nine points, ending the quarter at 3-18.

Another eight minutes began the next quarter and Granada Hills continued their deconstruction of Cleveland’s offense, not without a bit of a fight however. Cleveland’s senior guard, Samar Musba, went up and completed the game’s second three for her squad and power forward Sophie Ward-Boulier, went to the line for two and also made a field goal. Granada Hills held the Cavaliers to just those additional six points for the quarter due in part to the defense of Cayley Fuentes who had two rebounds and two huge blocks by Tashia Wilson-Sowah. The second quarter ended with the score 9-26.

Granada Hills carried on defensively and offensively in the second half as Yeck had four field goals including the third and final three for the game and Gonzalez had two field goals. All of this before the third hit the five minute mark – adding to Granada’s point spread at 9-39. That was exactly when Cleveland dug in deep, getting to the line twice and grabbing two buckets pushing their total to 16 points at the end of the third to Granada Hills’ 50.

In the fourth quarter, the score remained untouched until again the five minute mark. Cleveland reduced their deficit by adding another eight points to the board to the Highlanders’ three making the final score 24-53.

Granada Hills’ head coach Rai Colston had this to say about the game and his team, “I thought the defense was good. I thought we should have took(sic) more advantage of our open opportunities that we had, but, you know, it’s our first league game we haven’t played since January 3rd, so we’re trying to still trying to find ourselves.’

Granada Hills played a scrappy Taft team on Friday and went on to beat them in another dominating performance, 60-12, making them 2-0 in league play and 14-6 overall. They play Birmingham on Wednesday January 21.

Cleveland responded on Friday night when they beat El Camino Real before dropping a close one to Westlake on Saturday. They are now 1-1 in league play and 10-10 overall. The Cavaliers visit Chatsworth to continue league play on Wednesday.

All photos by David Martinez

@Highlander_gbb