Porterville wins third-straight EYL title
Porterville wins third-straight EYL title
They came out fast and they came out scoring.
Porterville High School senior Shyanne Rainey scored two goals in the first 40 seconds of the Panthers’ 11-10 victory over crosstown rival Monache in Wednesday’s final East Yosemite League game. The win gave Porterville (22-5, 8-0 EYL) their third-straight EYL title and second undefeated league season since 2016.
“It’s awesome,” first-year head coach Evan Thomas said. “The girls have been working hard, not just this year while I’ve been here but the seniors, for four years — more than four years, they’ve been playing for a long time. And this season when I started here they showed me they were a team that wanted to work hard and that’s what we’ve been doing. They are continuing to work hard which is the great part because we’re at the point in our season where we could take things for granted but we’re still working hard. We’re still learning.”
Like rivalry games tend to go, the score remained close until the end with Monache (17-12, 5-3 EYL) sophomore Ava Lobue and juniors Claire Schrein and Kalina Weaver, giving the Marauders a fighting chance.
Down by just four goals in the final quarter, Schrein’s goal cut the Panthers lead to 11-8 with 4:23 to go while Lobue’s goal at the end of a man-up situation a minute later put Monache within two. Under two minutes later, Weaver scored off an assist and the Marauders were within one goal of the Panthers for the first time since the end of the second quarter.
Less than a minute to play, a no-look, back-handed shot attempt from Rainey for insurance missed but was followed up by a Lobue steal and MHS head coach Brandon Weaver calling a timeout to set up his players for one last shot. From the right side of the goal, Monache junior Maddy Chapman took the final shot of the game. The ball glanced off the hand of Porterville senior goalkeeper Samantha Rainey and the clock winded down to give the Pan-
thers the win.
“These games are always close, I was on the other side before,” Thomas, a former Monache boys water polo coach, said. “No matter where you are it's always close. If one team's way better, one team's not [as good]. It doesn't matter, the game itself is going to be close. Especially the last one. The goal for us was to get out of here with a win and we did that. They did score a little bit in the fourth quarter but they needed too. We scored a lot before that. I thought it was a good win for us. We did what we needed to do at the end to protect the ball and come out with a win. I'm happy the girls fought through and made sure we got the win.”
After scoring the team's first two goals, Shyanne Rainey went on to score a game-high five goals while also recording an assist. Senior Rosemary Chapman finished with four goals, four assists and two steals while junior Alyssa Bodoh had two goals, two assists and four steals. Both Samantha Rainey and junior Johanna Scheer led the team in steals with five while Samantha Rainey finished with 11 blocks.
For Monache, Schrein led the Marauders with four goals. Weaver, Lobue and senior Emily Chapman all had two goals apiece.
While it was the final EYL game of the season, both teams are headed to the CIF Central Section Division II playoffs. Seedings and brackets will be announced by Saturday afternoon.
“We're excited, we're ready, we can't wait,” Thomas said. “But that's not just me, that's my whole team. We're ready for it, all my seniors are super excited for playoffs. We are excited to see the seedings, to see who we play, what side of the bracket we're on. All that good stuff.”