COS clinches playoff spot, home game

By Rob McCallum
Published: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 4:08 PM CST
Mt. Shasta News

COS center Karlee Myers drives inside against Redwoods on Friday night. The freshman scored 31 points against Shasta.

It just keeps getting better for the College of the Siskiyous women's basketball team.

Saturday night saw the Eagles complete their first season sweep of rival Shasta College in recent history. Sunday morning they found out they'd be going to the state playoffs. And on Monday their injured point guard was cleared to return to the team.

“That's all good news for us,” coach Tom Powers said. “We're set up nicely now to go to the playoffs and even get a home game.”

The Eagles (23-3, 6-2 Golden Valley Conference) clinched at least second place in the conference with a pair of blowout wins over College of the Redwoods and the Knights.

Siskiyous made sure early that Friday night's game against COR wouldn't be as close as the 88-82 nailbiter on Jan. 27 in Eureka. The Eagles jumped out to 12-4 and 17-9 leads en route to a 92-64 blowout.

“We extended our pressure against them on the outside more than the first game,” Powers said. “We knew that they played a lot better at home than they do on the road, so we tried to take advantage of that.”

Freshman guard Kristin Arenas scored a career-high 23 points, including 5-for-9 shooting from behind the arc.

Corsair Kaitlinn Solinsky tried to keep her team in the game with 28 points, but COS couldn't be stopped, shooting 69 percent inside the 3-point line and hitting 12 shots outside of it.

The Eagles opened the second half on an 11-2 run, and after Arness scored seven straight points, COS was up by 29 points.

Karlee Myers had 17 points while Katie Pollak and Chelsea Keuhner had 12 apiece. Natasha Robinson had 6 assists and 5 steals, and Pollak grabbed 9 rebounds.

For the past four seasons, COS and Shasta had split the season series, with each team winning in the others' gym. The Eagles broke that trend on Jan. 20 by surviving the Knights at home.

On Saturday night COS won one of the more lopsided scores in the rivalry's recent history with an 80-66 win in Redding.

“It was just a real good win for everybody,” Powers said. “We kept scoring more and more.”

From a tenuous 40-36 halftime lead, COS watched the Knights go ahead by 5, then tie the game at 57 with just under 9 minutes left. Arness and Keuhner hit back-to-back 3s and COS never looked back.

In all, the Eagles hit 14 treys in the game but the biggest boost came inside, where Myers scored 31 points.

“Karlee carried us in the first half by getting open inside,” Powers said. “That kept us going until the second half when everybody picked it up.”

Pollak finished with 13 points, Arness had 12 and Keuhner 11 to go with 5 assists.

This week, when COS travels to Lassen and hosts Feather River on Saturday, they will have the services of point guard Amanda Harris for the first time since she suffered a broken wrist on Jan. 5.

The Eagles head to Susanville today to face conference-leading Lassen with an outside chance of a GVC co-championship, but will need help from other teams. The Cougars won a 100-97 barnburner in Weed last month.

“Hopefully we can get some help and beat them over there,” Powers said. “But we'll have second alone no matter what and just gear up for the playoffs.”

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