PT-Girls sweep Elsie Allen to end busy week

Petaluma High School’s busy T-Girl basketball team swept a back-to-back doubleheader against Elsie Allen to start the week.|

Petaluma High School’s busy T-Girl basketball team swept a back-to-back doubleheader against Elsie Allen to start the week, beating the Lady Lobos, 53-27, in ?Santa Rosa on Monday and, 53-32, in the Petaluma gym Tuesday.

The games marked a busy six-games in eight days stretch for the T-Girls who host El Molino Thursday night before getting a much-needed seven-day rest.

The sweep of the Lobos improved Petaluma’s Sonoma County League record to 3-4 and left its overall mark at 7-15.

In both this week’s games, Petaluma showed it was simply a better team than Elsie Allen, dominating in all aspects of both contests.

The Lady Lobos have made strides in the last couple of years. They play hard and have streaks of real competitiveness. However, they are still not on a par with most SCL teams. Overall they are 1-17 on the season and 0-7 in league play.

Petaluma coach Jon Ratshin took advantage of the one-sided nature of both games to give all the T-Girls playing time. At periods Tuesday night, the T-Girl sidelines looked like a game of musical chairs with substitutions coming two and three at a time throughout the game.

The result was contributions from the entire roster.

Sparkplug freshman guard Paris Buchanan, who did an excellent job ball handling and directing the Petaluma offense when she was in the game, led the way for the T-Girls with 10 points.

Other contributions came from Pate Kalleigh (5), Nichole Costa (5), Angeline Scaccalosi (3), Courtney Temple (2), Lilly Catarozoli (2), Emily O’Keefe (6), Kelsey Martin (6), Ava Chabot (1), Marcie George (7) and Jaden Krist (6). Krist also did a strong job on the boards, especially at the defensive end of the court in limited playing time.

Freshman Elyssa Smith was a one-person gang for Elsie Allen, ignoring T-Girl defensive efforts to consistently take the ball to the rim or to muscle up follow-ups of missed Lobo shots. She scored 19 of her team’s 32 points.

Petaluma jumped out to a 14-6 opening quarter lead and really blew things open in the second period when its aggressive defense forced 10 Elsie Allen turnovers and held the Lady Lobos to just four points, all coming on follow-up shots by Smith.

The Tuesday win was similar to Monday’s T-Girl victory in the Elsie Allen gym.

Petaluma led just 10-7 after the first quarter in that game, before scoring 22 points in the second period and romping home from there.

Petaluma also received roster deep contributions in that game, led by Costa with 12 points. Help came from Pate (2), Buchanan (4), Scaccalosi (2), Madeline Abramson (2), Catarozoli (2), O’Keefe (7) Martin (5), Chabot (8), George (4) and Krist (6).

Erika Cruz led the Lady Lobos with 12.

Last week

Last week, the T-Girls gave Sonoma County League power Healdsburg a battle in the Lady Hounds’ home gym before losing, 48-37.

Petaluma shocked Healdsburg early, jumping out to a 12-7 opening-quarter lead.

Healdsburg regained control in the second period, scoring 17 points for a 24-17 halftime lead it never gave up.

Petaluma refused to fold and stayed in the game almost to the end.

The T-Girls were led by Krist, who scored 15 points. Costa added 10.

Petaluma also lost to league-leading Analy, 54-20.

The T-Girls fell behind, 11-3 in the opening quarter and never recovered.

Krist led the T-Girl scoring with eight points. No one else scored more than four as the Petalumans had just six hits from the floor.

Sophie McFadin led Analy with 14 points, while Bailey Hunter added 10.

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