Golden Valley girls wrap up undefeated run through CCC

For this Golden Valley High School girls basketball team, Tuesday was an opportunity to put an exclamation point on its conference season.

The Cougars did it emphatically, dominating the glass and extending their lead to as much as 19 points in the second half and cruised to a 53-42 win over Merced on Tuesday night at Cougar Arena. In doing so the Cougars finished their first undefeated run through the Central California Conference in school history.

“This is a special moment,” senior Camille Flores said. “This hadn’t been done ever for our school. We’re undefeated CCC champs. I’m so proud of how hard my team worked.”

Golden Valley (22-3, 10-0) will conclude the regular season Monday with a nonconference game at Riverbank, and then wait to see where it will open the playoffs.

Cougars coach Matt Thissen hopes the 22 wins and perfect conference record will earn his team a home game.

“I hope they’ll give us at least that first game at home, I feel we’ve earned that,” Thissen said. “We’ll just go from there.”

Golden Valley honored three seniors before the game, including Flores. Flores’ first two season Golden Valley didn’t come close to making the playoffs with a combined 15-36 record.

Those struggles have made this season that much more rewarding.

“She’s a third-year varsity captain,” Thissen said. “She came out tonight and was pressing a bit. We tried to make her ease up and slow it down a bit. When she let the game come to her that’s when her scoring took off.”

Flores scored 15 of her game-high 18 points in the final three quarters as she helped the Cougars pull away from Merced (13-11, 6-4).

Golden Valley dominated the paint as Kayla Commons scored nine points and pulled down 10 rebounds. Abbee Croninger had eight rebounds. Stephanie Moore slashed her way to 11 points.

Meanwhile, Merced was frigid from beyond the arc after hitting 11 three-pointers against the Cougars in their last matchup. The Bears made just four Tuesday.

Bears star Lexi Thompson never got going offensively and finished with just three points, all on free throws.

Symone Gilliam led Merced with 13 points.

“It would have been nice to hit some of those shots, that’s for sure,” Gilliam said. “But we weren’t too focused on that. We were focused on driving more and going after them. We were able to get a couple early fouls on (Moore).”

The Cougars took an eight-point lead into the half and used a 12-2 run in the third to extend the lead to 45-26 with 2:57 left in the quarter.

Merced was able to close the deficit to 51-42 with 1:14 left, but the Bears made just one of 11 three-point attempts in the fourth quarter.

“I’m really happy for the girls,” Thissen said. “This is really a unique group. Not just because of their athletic ability but they genuinely care for each other. These girls are religious about going to the weight room daily, whether it’s to lift, stretch or work on their agility.”

Buhach Colony 48, Atwater 42 in Atwater – Kaelee Lynch caught fire, hitting five three-pointers on her way to a game-high 21 points to help the Thunder (15-10, 7-3 CCC) finish in second place in the conference.

Heaven Mazon led Atwater (15-11, 3-7) with 18 points.

This story was originally published February 10, 2015 at 11:11 PM with the headline "Golden Valley girls wrap up undefeated run through CCC."