Maxwell leads Heritage girls basketball team to victory
Sierra Maxwell led her team with 43 points and 12 steals Thursday night. (Photo by Rick Rowell) By Paige Mendez, Correspondent The Heritag...
By Paige Mendez, Correspondent
The Heritage High School girls basketball team won its first-round CIF Division 3A playoff game against Twentynine Palms Thursday night, 79-32.
The Patriots were quick to the board with 19 first-quarter points, while the visiting Wildcats didn’t get their first field goal until the final minute of the first period. Though they had control of the scoreboard from the start, Heritage head coach Deanna Meijer said she felt like her team was not controlling the pace of the game.
“It was frustrating because it felt like we were playing to [the other team’s] level,” she said. “We’ve got to practice hard tomorrow because playing like that in the next round won’t get us any further.”
Heritage will play host to Oakwood on Saturday in the second round.
It wasn’t until the latter half of the second quarter that the Patriot press started to kick in, and the team tallied 24 steals in the first half thanks to that. Sierra Maxwell, who led the game in points and steals (43 and 12 respectively) contributed majorly to that, as did senior Mariah Logan, who had seven steals of her own.
“This was not our night, but it feels amazing to know that even on a bad night we still do this,” said Logan, who also had 11 points in the game. “During practices the main thing we work on is defense. That’s our bread and butter like coach always says; that’s just what we do. It’s nothing new to us. We just have to warm up.”
The defense is what Meijer said she was most frustrated with, as a few of the post players got in early foul trouble, leaving them to work mismatched through the game. Another factor contributing to the defensive struggle was the absence of junior Reg’inae Hardin, who was out of town for personal reasons.
“We miss her athletically but we also miss her personality,” Meijer said of Hardin missing the game. “She really leaves a big hole and has a very specific energy and we just were not our usual selves without her.”
But with a 33-point third quarter and a final score margin of over 40 points, some things were very normal Heritage basketball. Things like Maxwell’s 43 points and 12 steals, Logan’s 11 points, the team’s 25 rebounds, outscoring the Wildcats on fast break buckets 10 to 1 and having over twice as many second chance points as the opponent.
Regardless of how their CIF run goes, Meijer said she is very proud of the fact that her team is made solely of athletes belonging to the Heritage boundaries, with no recruits -- something she said makes her squad unique.
“We’ve been able to do a lot with what we’ve been given here,” she said. “Most teams that get this far have recruited to get there and we haven’t, and I’m proud of them for that.”
Anissa Trujillo goes to the hoop for two points Thursday night. (Photo by Rick Rowell)
