Mission uses 25-0 run to spark a second-straight win

SANTA CLARA -- Mission College women's basketball heads into the new year as a new team with newfound momentum, jumping back over the .500 mark with a well-rounded win against Los Medanos, 76-59.

The Saints (6-5) are right on the edge of starting conference play in what should be a competitive Coast-South but have struggled in what head coach Antonio Veloso calls the "50/50 games", games that will come down to whoever executes their gameplan better instead of just relying on pure talent. On the other hand, the Mustangs (9-4) already have more victories than last season but have done so by dominating the 50/50 games.

"Sometimes we go at the same pace as our opponent," said sophomore center Kaylani Trout-Lacy, "but this time, we ran our own pace. And that makes a huge difference every single time. I'm happy that we're doing things our own way instead of letting the other team dictate our game."

Los Medanos came in with two of the top five scorers in the Bay Valley with Eve Monzon and Kendall McClure leading the charge. The pair was on fire early on, with Monzon scoring eight points and McClure dropping in a 3 to give Los Medanos an early 11-4 advantage.

But then Mission went on its best run of the season, scoring 25 unanswered points from the middle of the first quarter to the early part of the second. The team and its coaching staff agreed, more impressive than the stellar offense was the defense that sparked it.

"That's all defense right there," Veloso said. "It shows what we can do when we play with that much energy and communicate. And it's tough to get that every single time. But when we do that, they've starting to understand - you play defense, you get easier shots. You get easier shots, you make them. You make those shots, and you start feeling really good. And you start feeling yourself, and now things just keep rolling."

Sophomore guard Alyssa Lopez, who hit a pair of 3's during the 25-0 run and contributed a game-high four steals, added on to Veloso's interpretation.

 "We were just getting our defensive stops," said Lopez, "and actually getting points off of those turnovers. A big thing for us is trying to get points per possession. The higher our points are per possession, [the more likely we are] to win the game."

While the Saints didn't keep Los Medanos scoreless for the rest of the half, they still went into the locker room with a 45-26 lead. It was a two-way battle between Lopez and McClure, who finished with 14 first half points on four made 3's. In the second half, Mission did a much better job of containing McClure, only allowing her to hit one 3 while playing almost the entire final two frames.

Lopez won the second half battle, finishing with 21 points to lead the Saints. After a little bit of an early-December swoon, Lopez is back on fire. Over her last two games, she's scored 40 points and gone 10-14 from deep. Lopez is now second in the Coast-South in three-point percentage at 36.7% and tied for 12^th in the state in 3's made with 36.

"I'm going [good] right now," said Lopez. "I also think it's my defense. These last two games, I've been a lot more active on the defensive end, and for me, that translates onto my offensive end. It makes me feel more loose."

The hot stretch may have been sparked by a simple conversation between Lopez and Veloso after her cold stretch, as Veloso instilled confidence in the sophomore guard by acknowledging her potential as a shooter.

"The other game, we were sitting here before" said Veloso, "and I looked at Alyssa and I said 'hey, let's get back to 40 [percent from 3]?' and she said 'I know I have to get back to 40' and she's doing it."

He gave a similar message to Trout-Lacy, who grabbed 20 rebounds, with six on the offensive end, against the Wildcats.

"My coach told me I could do it," said Trout-Lacy. "When he told me that I should be able to, that means I need to go get it. I can't let my coach down. I didn't even think that I [had that many]. I felt like I was just playing the game, so hearing that makes me feel really good about myself."

Overall, it was another well-rounded scoring effort outside of Lopez' 21 and Trout-Lacy's 11 as Ashjeet Kaur dropped in 10 while adding three assists and a pair of steals and Snowe Deleon had 14 points off the bench.

But the defense was the best part for the Saints. Monzon scored 23 and McClure added 17, but no other Mustang scored over seven points and, as a team, Los Medanos shot just 27.5% from the field.

"If we were able to keep the same level on energy on defense for those 50/50 games that we lost," said Veloso, "[our record] would look different. Because the difference between us and [Los Medanos] is that they've played a bunch of those 50/50 games as well, but they beat them. We didn't. This is a good reset because it shows us what we can do if we play at that level, and we did a really good job against them."

Winners of a pair in a row, the Saints will look to keep their momentum on January 2^nd as they take on Redwoods at home.