It was a long but satisfying journey to Newman for Escalon’s varsity basketball girls this past week, taking on Orestimba in preseason play.
“We figured we better get used to it as they will enter the Trans-Valley League next season along with Sonora and we will lose Riverbank and Livingston,” head coach Joseph Dalpogetti said of the long trip on Tuesday, Dec. 12.
“Orestimba ended our special TVL title season two years ago and beat us on a buzzer beater last season,” added the coach. “We talked about how those things don’t matter and this is a new season and we can’t dwell on the past, but it still felt good to get out of there with a win this time around.”
The final score was Escalon 52, Orestimba 22.
“We jumped on them early and led 11-0 at the end of the first quarter,” Dalpogetti said. “The last two seasons they have been a full court pressure man to man team, but they came out with a 1-2-2 zone. We are used to teams zoning us, that’s almost exclusively what we see now.”
The Lady Cougars took a 22-8 lead at the break but knew they had to take care of business the rest of the way.
“We blew an 18-point first half lead against them last year so we didn’t feel comfortable at all,” the coach said. “In the second half we erupted in the third quarter and at one point led 40-8. We ended up scoring 25 in the quarter.”
That helped secure the victory and though Orestimba did get some late scoring, after Escalon called off the press, they couldn’t get back in it and the varsity Lady Cougars had the 30-point victory.
“The win gets us to 8-0 overall. And Orestimba normally wins the Southern League so it was potentially a good win over a Division 4 league champion,” said Dalpogetti.
Chloe Farley had a great night with 15 points and Ari Velasco had 12, Madi Babasa chipped in with 10 and Sammy Lang had nine points in the win as the varsity girls enjoyed some balanced scoring.
They were scheduled to host Pitman on Dec. 18, after The Times went to press.
“It was originally going to be Sonora but they didn’t want to play us again due to travel, illness and injury so we asked Pitman if they would move our previously scheduled Friday game three days later (Dec. 15) and they obliged and it potentially gives us more time to get healthy,” the coach explained. “We haven’t been at full strength for the past five games.”
They will then host Amador on Thursday, Dec. 21 at 6 p.m. and Central Valley of Ceres in a 2:30 p.m. contest on Friday, Dec. 22.
