Crusaders step on it, race by Beaverton

Jesuit wins another game by double-digits, beating Beaverton 79-54

By Miles Vance

The Beaverton Valley Times, Feb 4, 2010, Updated Feb 4, 2010

SANDWICH — Jesuit’s Claire Stach squeezes between Beaverton’s Megan MacDonald (left) and Abigail Kaiser during her team’s 79-54 victory.

Miles Vance / Beaverton Valley Times

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BEAVERTON – The rest of the Metro League better watch out — it looks like the Jesuit girls basketball team is hitting its stride.

The Crusaders did their best to hammer that home on Friday at Beaverton High School, where they knocked down seven three-pointers and hammered the talented Beavers 79-54. The win, Jesuit’s second straight lopsided victory since losing to Southridge on Jan. 22, lifted the team’s Metro record to 6-1 (12-4 overall) and kept it in sole possession of second place behind the league-leading 7-0 Skyhawks.

“We just really wanted to come out strong and have a really good game because our last couple ones have been kind of shaky,” said junior post Elizabeth Brenner, who led all scorers with 19 points. “We really wanted to step it up and play our game tonight.”

“I just thought we came together and played really hard on defense, stayed really aggressive and worked to move the ball around,” added senior guard Shannen Taylor, who hit four “threes” for her 12 points. “We’ve been working really hard on coming together and perfecting our press and giving teams trouble.”

They certainly did that against the Beavers, forcing 19 turnovers and limiting Beaverton to 33 percent shooting from the field, a performance good enough that even the Beavers had to compliment it. With the loss, Beaverton fell to 3-4 in league (11-6 overall) and a third-place tie with Sunset.

“Jesuit’s an awesome basketball team,” said Beaverton senior Carley Losk, who had 11 points against the Crusaders. “Every night they come out and work hard. They have forces on the outside and the inside and they play good defense. I’m really impressed with the Jesuit team.”

“They hit everything they shot,” added Beaver junior Marissa Rakestraw, who led her team with 14 points. “Especially early on, they hit ‘threes’ and we got down and it was hard to work our way back up.”

The Beavers were down just 9-5 three minutes into the game when Rakestraw took a pass from Losk and hit from the left baseline, but the Crusaders closed the quarter on a 14-6 run over the final 4 minutes, 41 seconds of the period to take control.

Taylor hit two three-pointers in that run, Alyssa Martin connected twice from the left corner and Carly Wellington converted twice off fast breaks to give the Crusaders a 23-11 lead at the end of the opening stanza.

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