close

California holds off Fort Cherry for playoff win

4 min read
article image -

COAL CENTER – Makayla Boda had been in this situation before.

The California senior played well in two tight playoff games a year ago so another close battle against Fort Cherry on Tuesday night didn’t faze her at all.

Boda scored a game-high 23 points and made several key plays in the second half as the Trojans pulled away in the final minutes for a 50-43 win over the Rangers in a WPIAL Class 2A first-round battle.

“We went through that last year, too,” Boda said. “It helped me a lot. Last year we won one game by one (36-35 over Greensburg Central Catholic) and lost one by two (43-41 to Clairton).”

“Makayla is used to this,” California coach Chris Niemiec said. “Against Greensburg last year and against Clairton she really took over the game.”

Eighth-seeded California advances to play at top-seeded Neshannock, a 70-40 winner over Aliquippa, in a quarterfinal match-up Friday at 6 p.m.

The Trojans (11-3) held a 32-30 lead after three quarters but Dana Sinatra’s basket tied for Fort Cherry early in the fourth.

Boda followed with back-to-back steals, one leading to teammate Rakiyah Porter making one of two free throws and the other leading to Boda sinking a pair of foul shots for a 35-32 lead.

Porter followed with a 3-pointer to put California up 38-32 with just over four minutes remaining.

The ninth-seeded Rangers (10-10) battled back with a steal and layup by Emma Blinkenderfer and a basket by Sinatra whittling to gap to 40-38 with 2:23 left.

Ca’mari Walden, who dominated on the boards for California all game, then showed her passing ability with two key assists, one to Boda for a layup and another to McKenna Hewitt inside for a basket to stretch the gap to six with 1:15 remaining.

From there the Trojans put the game away at foul line. Porter, who missed the front end of a one-and-one with 1:27 left, swished four in a row and Boda made two in the closing seconds to cap a perfect seven-for-seven night at the charity stripe.

Porter followed Boda in scoring with 15 points and Cruse added 10.

Annika Rinehart led Fort Cherry with 16 points. Sinatra and Blinkenderfer had nine and eight points, respectively.

Rangers coach Clarence Edwards felt his team missed too many easy shots.

“The layups,” Edwards said. “The goals were to simply finish layups, win the boards and limit the turnovers. We just didn’t finish.

“Our defense played well. If I had to pinpoint one thing it’s that we just didn’t finish layups.”

Edwards commended his team’s effort and season.

“This is a big accomplishment,” said Edwards, whose team finished second in Section 3. “Give them all the credit in the world. They’re fighters.”

California played without one of its top scorers, Kendelle Weston, who was ruled ineligible for the postseason after transferring from Monessen after last season.

“If she was here it would’ve been a different game,” Boda said. “But we still played as hard as we could and I’m really proud of us.”

Niemiec agreed that the Trojans missed Weston’s shooting.

“They went to a zone and we couldn’t expand it as much as we would’ve liked,” he said.

California led 16-11 after the first quarter and went up eight on a 3-pointer by Cruse early in the second quarter.

Fort Cherry answered with an 11-2 run to take a 22-21 lead before Cruse hit another 3-pointer just before the buzzer to put California ahead 24-22 at halftime.

Rinehart tied the game with a basket early in the third quarter but Boda came up with consecutive layups off steals to make it 28-24 and the Trojans took a 32-30 advantage into the final quarter.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $3.75/week.

Subscribe Today