Closing out the regular season with a win, the varsity basketball girls defeated Hilmar on the road, 57-39.

“We were up 16-4 after one, 35-10 at half, 44-23 after three,” head coach Joseph Dalpogetti said of the Feb. 7 win, his Lady Cougars taking control early. “We jumped all over them in the first quarter. We actually missed a lot of easy ones. That 16-4 lead could have easily been 30-4. But I was happy with the amount of turnovers we were generating and the quality of shots we were getting, just not the result.”

The girls were looking to solidify their playoff standing and wanted to put the win on the books.

“We may have let up a little, up 25 at half, and we tried to run some new things that didn’t really pan out,” Dalpogetti said. “So we had a meager second half but you take our second longest league trip of the year and still win by nearly 20 against a team trying to fight for a playoff berth; we will take it.”

Macie Vickers had 23 points in her return to the court, Sammy Lang added 12 and Kelsey Webster chipped in with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Vickers had nine steals on the night, Lang had seven.

“We kept dropping in the (playoff) standings throughout the week even though we won and the other teams we were jumbled up with lost,” Dalpogetti noted. “We ended up getting the 10 seed.”

That put the girls on the road for the opening round of the Division 4 playoffs, traveling to No. 7 seed Capital Christian; the game was scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 14 after The Times went to press. The varsity girls were 8-4 in league play, third in the TVL, and compiled a 17-8 overall record in preseason and league play.

JV

Though the JV girls had a winning season in league, they dropped the finale on the road, losing by a three-point margin, 45-42, to Hilmar. Aiden Hohenwarter poured in 19 points in the contest while Ayana Cocio added 13 to the team total. The JV squad was 7-5 in league play, 14-12 overall for the campaign.