After winning its first two games in the State Regional basketball tournament, a blowout and a tight game, Culver City High School’s girls team faces No. 1 seed Chaminade of West Hills this evening in the Valley in the semi-finals.
The No. 4-seeded Lady Centaurs continued their dream season by winning two State Regional games last week, beating Los Angeles Roosevelt 64-40 and edging Bakersfield Garces 53-52. The Regional finals are Saturday night.
City will be matching its speed against their size. Chaminade has four girls over six feet. Culver City has none. The Lady Centaurs’ tallest player is 5-11 backup center Gwen Machado. They will need to run, use their quickness and stay out of foul trouble. “We must make sure we box out, talk on defense and play within our game plan,” said senior captain Kelsey Ueda.
In Saturday night’s win over Bakersfield Garces, Culver City enjoyed big games from Michelle Curry, who had 19 points and eight rebounds, Kailey Tooke, who scored 13 points and made six rebounds, Ueda had six points and seven rebounds, and Lindsey Tanita scored 10 points.
Assistant coach Mark Ktavayshi has a clear directive for the Lady Centaurs this evening.
“We need to cut down on our mistakes,” he said. “We can’t play the way we played against Bakersfield and beat Chaminade.”
Maybe the Centaurs can learn something from their one point victory over Garces. They were down 11-1 to start the game but kept their sights on the big picture. “We did not panic when we were down,” said Kitabayshi. “If we would have made our free throws the game would not have been so close.”
Culver City will need to make their shots and free throw against Chaminade. If they do that the Centaurs can upset Chaminade and reach final. “A lot of our goals have been fulfilled but we are not finished,” said Ueda. “I could not have asked for better teammates. Each and every girl on this team is amazing.”
Mr. Finley may be contacted at sfinley50@aol.com
