By Noe Ortega
Women’s basketball advanced to the State Final Championship Bracket tournament with a dominant 78-53 win over Pasadena City College at home on Saturday.
East Los Angeles College will take on Merced College in the quarter final on Friday at 1 p.m. at Ventura College.
If the Huskies defeat Merced on Friday, they”ll advance to the semi finals and play against Moorpark College or College of the Sequoias the following day.
The Huskies learned from their last playoff match against Cypress College and didn’t hold anything back against PCC.
Whether ELAC was up by seven or 25 points, head coach Bruce Turner never switched off his teams constant full court press.
The pressure that was being applied toward PCC caused them to finish with 21 turnovers, and the Huskies were able to score off of PCC’s turnovers.
“This is the way we’re supposed to perform. This is our expectation as to how we play. This is a description of Husky basketball to rebound the ball well and execute it beautifully,” said Turner.
ELAC scored 26 out of 67 of its field goal attempts and scored six out of its 13 three-point-shots.
Sophomore guards Jaelynn Curley and Jennifer Pool had the strongest offensive performance.
Curley finished with 21 points and Pool finished with 18 points.
“Props to my teammates for finding me on the court with my shooting. This was a team effort where I was moving around coming off the screens pretty good with the help of my teammates. My family was out here so I had to perform,” said Curley.
Freshman forward Jadis Watson and freshman guard Dominique Godbolt led the team in rebounds. Watson finished with 11 and Godbolt came off the bench to finish with 12 rebounds.
ELAC and PCC’s starters had an even game, but the Huskies were able to rely on their bench to come into the game and perform.
The Huskies bench outscored PCC’s bench 17-3, and had more rebounds as well.
ELAC played PCC twice prior to Saturday’s game in the South Coast Conference-North and the Huskies were victorious in both games.
Turner said that they have respect for whomever they play against and his team was focused on making it to the State Championship Bracket tournament. “We came in with the mentality that this is the game that matters so if we don’t win this one, we go home and we didn’t want to. So we came out and played them like if they were any other team and did what we had to do,” said sophomore guard Mercedes Ortiz.
The last time ELAC made it to the California Community College Athletic Association State quarterfinals was in the 2016-2017 season where the Huskies lost against College of the Siskiyous 93-81.
This will be ELAC’s fourth trip to the State Championships in the past five seasons under coach Turner.
“We like where we are. It’s win or go home. This is what we prepared for since August and whenever we start recruiting. So to realize our accomplishments it feels really good,” said Turner.