Gators come up short against Cougars

Green Valley’s girls basketball team certainly won’t grab your attention with height. The Gators’ tallest player is 5 feet 8 inches.

Coronado boasts two 6-footers. And that disparity was crystal clear Wednesday.

Samantha Green led the way with 14 points, 15 rebounds and three blocked shots to help the host Cougars to a 58-38 win over the Gators in a Southeast League showdown.

“We always try to play from the inside-out and use our post players,” Coronado coach Rich Santigate said. “We’ll shoot the three, but we’re not just shooting a lot of them. … It was a little bit of a tough matchup problem for them. But we also did some things defensively that we haven’t done in the past.”

The 6-1 Green took charge in the first half with frontcourt teammate Kayla Watterson sitting with early foul trouble. Green had nine points and nine rebounds to give the Cougars a 30-18 halftime lead.

“She’s been very consistent,” Santigate said. “She had to play a lot of minutes because Kayla got into foul trouble in the first half. And she did a great job.”

Watterson, who returned in the third quarter, scored 13 of her game-high 17 points in the second half. She also had eight rebounds for the Cougars, who outrebounded the Gators 33-24.

Green and Watterson also were key in helping break Green Valley’s full-court pressure for the Cougars (15-8, 4-2 Southeast League).

Santigate said Coronado’s press break was one of the biggest differences from the last time the teams met, a 52-44 Green Valley victory on Jan. 7.

“That hurt us last time against them,” Santigate said. “We just kept moving the ball and executing. They know what they have to do. Last time we played, we kind of got a little caught up in the excitement in the game.”

Katie Thorn came off the bench to record nine points, four rebounds and three assists for Coronado, which was 23-for-52 (44.2 percent) from the field. With their height advantage, the Cougars took plenty of high percentage looks.

Ellee Barton led Green Valley with 13 points, including 10 in the first half. Viviasa Alae scored all seven of her points in the fourth quarter for the Gators (14-8, 4-2).

Green Valley finished 11-for-49 (22.5 percent) from the field and 14-for-25 (56.0 percent) from the free-throw line.

“We couldn’t make a layup; we couldn’t make a free throw,” Gators coach Eric Johnston said. “We probably missed 15 to 20 layups. Coronado is a pretty good team, and you’re not going to win a lot of games in this conference when you miss 15 to 20 layups. We just didn’t execute today. Everything we wanted to do, we didn’t do it.”

Contact reporter Ashton Ferguson at aferguson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0430. Follow him on Twitter: @af_ferguson.