Eight teams in the CIF Division 5A girls basketball playoff bracket received byes in the first round Thursday. Second-seeded Bishop Diego wasn’t one of them.
The Cardinals took the court against visiting AGBU of Pasadena, built a 22-5 first-quarter lead and never let up, rolling to a 69-11 victory.
Hannah Rogers had her way inside and scored a game-high 21 points, while point guard Jordyn Lilly tallied 16 points and kept the Bishop offense in control in the lopsided game. That was one of the impressive things about the Cardinals’ performance against an overmatched opponent. They played composed until the final buzzer.
“We talked about at the end of the first quarter of just getting better,” Bishop coach Jeff Burich said. “And when you have someone like Jordyn that kind of runs the show … She just plays smart, she shared the ball, she let the game come to her.”
Lilly didn’t score until the Cardinals were ahead 14-2, knocking down an 18-footer. She followed that with two layups after steals. Morgan Wallace fed her a nice pass on the first one.
Bishop Diego’s Morgan Wallace drives to the basket as teammate Hannah Rogers sets a screen in Thursday’s CIF game.
Bishop’s defensive intensity helped generate several scoring opportunities.
“I told the kids, ‘You can’t get a 10-point lead in the first 20 seconds of the game. You have to get defensive stops, you have to execute on offense. You do all that right for the first 4-5 minutes of the game you’ll have a 10-, 15-point lead, maybe.’ And that’s just what they did,” Burich said.
The reserves continued the work of the starters. Summer Soto knocked down three 3-pointers and finished with nine points.
“They want to play so they’re not just going to go out there and mess around,” Burich said. “They want to get stops. They know people are watching and they want to try and score at the same time, too.”
Bishop (19-8) will next play at St. Bernard’s in a second-round game on Saturday.
