Brawley girls win 47-46 squeaker over Kofa
BRAWLEY — The Brawley girls’ basketball team has had a rough few weeks. From Dec. 7, when they fell in overtime to Holtville at their own Wildcat Classic, through Jan. 2 they had dropped six straight, giving them a record of 4-13 overall.
The closest they came to victory during that span was a nine-point loss to Calipatria back on Dec. 8.
All of which is to say, they really needed a pickme-up on Thursday night.
The odds were good.
They were playing the Kofa Kings, a team that’s managed to win all of one game in 2018-19, often losing in lopsided fashion, but instead of a walkover they got a sucker punch — as the Kings raced out to a 19-6 first quarter lead, making the Wildcats work for everything they got before falling victim to a miraculous second half comeback that gave Brawley the razor-thin 47-46 win.
It really was an astonishing effort by the Wildcats to gut out the win.
They looked more subterranean than simply sluggish in the opening frame.
Leading scorer Angie Zamudio was a nonfactor and the Kings got to the rack at will.
But the second quarter saw the Wildcats find their pep.
Zamudio got going with a few pop-a-shot mid-rangers; Jaylee Yancy hit a three, and the defense tightened up a bit — though they still tended to concede quite a few offensive boards to the longarmed Kiki Hawkins.
From 19-6 they worked their way to a mere eightpoint deficit at the break — 31-23.
The third quarter was pure quagmire. Zamudio was kept off of the board again and looked like she was playing with dead legs, necessitating a sub-out.
The only offense Brawley could find was on baseline drives, but even those only yielded three scores.
But their defense managed to stay engaged and prevent the Kings from taking advantage of their offensive woes.
Valarie Valadez made an especially good showing, staying down in her stance and sliding her feet to deny penetration.
Going into the final frame it was 37-30.
The game was still within reach, but something would have to happen on offense for the Wildcats to bring it home.
Something did … for the Kings.
Kofa opened the quarter on a 7-0 run that felt like a 14-0 one.
It was hard to see how Brawley would bounce back from that.
But bounce back they did.
Zamudio came back in after getting a breather to drill back-to-back treys at the top of the key to bring it to 44-36.
After that Kofa only managed two more points (on Hawkins free throws) while the Wildcats roared back, tying it on a Yancy corner three and going ahead on a Lilly Martinez free throw after she stole the ball on the Kings’ next possession.
Kofa got one more chance after that, but couldn’t score, managing only a heavily contested mid-ranger.
Next up for the ‘Cats is a Tuesday date against Southwest at home.