After only a month of playing basketball together, the youthful Dos Pueblos girls basketball team is already feeling like a family.
“It’s funny because I’m the only one who can drive on the team,” explains senior captain Meghan Murphy. “So they call me their mom driving them around to lunch and stuff.”
Murphy had a head-of-the-family-type performance with 18 points to lead the Chargers to a 65-51 victory over Righetti on Friday at the Gold Coast Tournament.
“She’s the only senior on the team and she definitely stepped up and piggy-backed this young team,” credited head coach Maynard Pilapil, who only had seven players in uniform and no assistant coaches.
The Chargers feature four freshman playing big minutes and are off to a 5-1 start.
Freshman Jessica Escalante matched Murphy’s 18 points with six 3-point shots. Sara Sessler, another freshman, contributed 10 more points.
Junior Sara Crane, whom Pilapil leans on for leadership with Murphy, posted 10 points to put four of the seven Chargers in double digits.
DP had to rally in this one, finding itself down 29-23 at halftime.
Late in the third quarter, Escalante hit two 3-pointers to help the Chargers take a slim one-point advantage into the final eight minutes.
Then the Chargers scored the first nine points of the fourth quarter and held Righetti scoreless for the first five minutes of the period and took a commanding 56-46 lead. Another Escalante 3-ball was the dagger, putting DP up 61-48 with two minutes to go.
“The game was a lot closer than the score shows,” noted Pilapil, whose expects a much stiffer test on Friday when his team takes on Agoura.
DOS PUEBLOS 65, RIGHETTI 51
Dos Pueblos – Murphy 18, Escalante 18, Sessler 10, Crane 10, Mata 2
Righetti – Rodriguez 2, Winters 10, Cooper 17, Schlemer 16, Besserman 4.
Righetti 12 17 17 5 – 51
Dos Pueblos 15 8 24 18 – 65
3-pointers – DP 6 (Escalante 6) R 6 (Winters 2, Cooper 4)
