PC men, women teams fall to COS
PC men, women teams fall to COS
Porterville College’s men’s basketball team is still feeling the loss of star guard, sophomore Malik Mccowan, after a 64-36 loss to the College of the Sequoias in Saturday evening’s Central Valley Conference game at home.
“Losing Malik, you’re talking about the best player in the conference, possibly MVP of the conference,” PC head coach Rob Haynes said. “I think. And even they knew it as well. COS knew that.”
Last season Mccowan had game-high scores of 23 and 34 points against the Giants, with the 34-point game coming in an 8568 PC win over COS, that kept the Giants out of playoffs. But out for the season after dislocating his patella in a 91-79 PC loss to Cerro Coso (5-12, 1-5 CVC), the Pirates (6-11, 1-5 CVC) have yet to fill the void left by Mccowan and are on a 5-game losing streak.
“I didn’t know it was going to have this much of an effect,” Haynes said. “And I think that the frustrating thing is that these kids, they still can play. It’s not like they can’t play. They can do things on their own, but they just have to believe in their skill set and their partner as well.”
PC fell behind early against COS (14-6, 4-2 CVC) posting seven points before the Pirates could get on the board with a score from sophomore Jackson Cascio. The Giants, likely still mad about missing the playoffs because of the Pirates according to Haynes, refused to let up and made good use of their bench who scored a total of 50 points.
PC sophomores Carlos Angel and Tevin Howell each posted a game-high 15 points, but as a team the Pirates shot 19-of-47 from the field, and Angel who is one of the best three-point shooters in the state, only knocked down 2-of-6 shots from beyond the arc. Freshman Elijah Cardenas also had a big night with 14 points for the Pirates.
Although he was on the bench with PC, a noticable loss in the energy that Mccowan brought to the team on the court was apparent. Highly competitive, Mccowan was the one usually making the big plays to bring the team back into the game and get the Pirates’ crowd into the game.
“The things that we’ve done before with Malik, you know with somebody making plays, that’s no longer here,” Haynes said. “So you got to counter that, you got to go to plan B. So right now, thus far, plan B is not working.”
PC trailed 47-29 at halftime and were down by 35 points — COS’ largest lead of the night — with two minutes left in the game. Four Giants scored in double-digits led by Kody Wilson with 15 points. Connor Tuttle — who shot 4-of-6 from three-point — followed with 14 points, while Austin Armstead had 12 points and Andy Isokpehi had 10.
Porterville is tied for last place in the CVC with Cerro Coso and Merced (3-15, 1-5 CVC). On Wednesday, PC travels to Reedley for a 7 p.m. CVC game.
WOMEN
Pirates still looking for first conference win
Porterville women’s basketball team’s losing streak was extended to eight games after the Lady Pirates lost 96-30 to the Lady Giants of the College of the Sequoias in Saturday’s Central Valley Conference game at home.
Playing with only six players, Porterville (216, 0-5 CVC) faced an uphill battle against not only one of the top teams in the Central Valley Conference, but also the
No. 4 team in the state according to the California Community College Athletic Association. But despite the large margin in the score, the Pirates gave it their all.
COS took the lead early on jumping out to an 8-0 run to start the first quarter before outscoring PC 26-9 to end the quarter. The next quarter wasn’t much better for the Pirates only putting up four points to the Giants’ 25.
“We don’t put our head down or nothing like that,” PC women’s head coach Jeremy Parker said. “We have a game plan and we have research on every single team we play and we just go try to follow the game plan as close as possible for as long as possible.”
PC came out for the second half down 31-15, but put up their best performance with a 12-point third quarter where freshman Kathy Rodriguez out of Strathmore High School and sophomore Maria Lopez both made a three-pointer. Lopez — who averages a double-double on the season — played all 40 minutes, finishing with a game-high 20 points and 12 rebounds.
“She’s our only sophomore right now so she’s a little bit of a veteran,” Parker said. “She understands a little bit more about spacing and timing, and stuff like that, she’s been a real positive leader for us. She does what she’s supposed to do and the girls kind of feed off that.”
Although Lopez is a forward, Parker added that he’s worked with her to share the ball more so that the other players can be more involved. Rodriguez was the second highest scorer for PC with six points and four rebounds.
Freshman forward Hailey Scott, who played for Monache High School, grabbed seven rebounds and scored five points in her 16 minutes of play for COS. Five players scored in double-digits for the Giants with Julianna Gutierrez scoring a team-high 14 points. Isabella Jimenez finished with 11 points while Alyssa Burton, Michal Sasson and Dejanee Gill each had 10 points.
Parker understands that playing with six players is hard, but with single-digit losses to West Hills-lemoore (910, 2-2 CVC) and Taft (412, 1-4 CVC), he’s confident the team could pick up wins in the second half of CVC play. This is the second eight-game losing skid of the season for the Pirates.
“We’re in a couple of games lately,” Parker said. “I can’t talk enough about their heart and desire and wanting to do better. And that’s going to pay off in the end.”
Porterville travels to Reedley (10-9, 1-4 CVC) Wednesday, Jan. 24 for a 5 p.m. game.