Falcons fight back in fourth quarter

LA CRESCENTA — After laying the groundwork for a blowout with an explosive first-quarter effort, the Crescenta Valley High girls’ basketball team desperately needed to rediscover some of that offensive charge going into the fourth quarter of a CIF Southern Section Division I-A first-round playoff game against visiting West Covina on Thursday that had once again become fairly close.

That spark materialized in the form of junior guard Cassie Pappas, who owned the fourth quarter, shaking off a sore knee to score 10 of her game-high 22 points and never letting the Bulldogs get closer than eight before the Falcons pulled away for a 50-34 victory.

“I couldn’t bend it too much, so every time I would sprint, I’d have a sharp, shooting pain,” said Pappas, who fell to the court and left the game briefly in the third quarter after knocking knees with a driving opponent. “I think we just realized that this [could be] the last time this team is gonna play on this court, so we really wanted to come out strong and finish it the way we wanted to.”

The Falcons saw to that, stifling an ambitious Bulldogs comeback from down from 17 points at halftime to set up a second-round date against Santa Monica at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at a site to be determined.

The only real scare for Crescenta Valley came in the third quarter, during which it scored just two points and saw the Bulldogs (16-11) get within 31-22 on a layup by Kai Brown (18 points) with 1:08 left.

Still up, 33-25, with 5:20 left in the game, Pappas went to work, driving for a layup plus a foul for a three-point play.

On the Bulldogs’ next possession, Stephanie Ziemann stole the ball and pushed it ahead to Shayna Svihovec, who found a streaking Pappas for another layup.

Falcons forward Lorrin Cheeney (four points, nine rebounds) put the Falcons up, 40-27, on a pull-up jumper with 3:40 to play and Pappas put the game away with another three-point play with 2:24 left on the clock.

“We made some great passes to get [Pappas] the ball,” Crescenta Valley Coach Jason Perez said. “In the fourth quarter, we started finding the open man, finding her, finding some of the other open kids. We made some open shots and we made our free throws.”

The Falcons (20-8) came out strong to open the game, leading 19-6 after one quarter behind nine first-quarter points from Melanie Samvalian, who finished with a game-high 11 rebounds.

The good start provided a cushion to brace the Falcons when the offense began to falter in an eight-turnover second quarter and went missing completely over the first seven-plus minutes of the third.

“The third quarter, I don’t know what happened,” said Perez, whose team took second place in the Pacific League. “All of a sudden. It was like they put a lid on the basket. ...I think we just tightened up a little bit.

“I wasn’t too concerned as long as we can play really good defense and they only scored nine points in that quarter.”

Defense was a constant asset for the Falcons, who got four blocks from Cheeney, four steals from Ziemann and three more takeaways from Dani Vargas.