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Varsity, JV Girls Win One, Lose One
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Escalon's varsity and JV basketball girls split their contests this week, while the freshmen took the court for just one game and it went in the loss column.

Hosting Amador on Tuesday, Jan. 6, the varsity girls took a 36-33 win off the court.

Leading 11-5 after one and 14-6 at the half, the Lady Cougars extended the lead to 27-15 after three quarters, then withstood a furious Amador rally in the fourth.

"They cut the lead to one point with five seconds left," said coach Kristie Cathcart.

Taking the ball down the court, Annie Gallego got fouled going up for a shot and sank the two free throws with one second remaining, sealing the win.

Amador, however, outscored the host team 18-9 in the final frame, nearly puling off the come from behind win.

"Amador hadn't won a game yet," Cathcart said. "We weren't going to let them win this one."

Gallego was the scoring leader in the contest with 16 points and Anne Bacay chipped in with eight.

"We did a good job on the press," Cathcart noted.

The JV girls also came away with a win that night, taking an easy victory off the court from the visitors. The freshmen played Bret Harte, since Amador does not have a freshman team, but came up short in a loss.

Friday, the JV and varsity girls traveled to Argonaut to face off with the Mustangs.

"We lost 56-34 but we played pretty good, better than the score shows," Cathcart said of her varsity squad. "We scored the first basket so we did have the lead at one point."

Amador, which has a couple of tall players and plenty of talent, took an 18-4 lead after one quarter and built on it from there. Escalon was much more competitive over the final three quarters, with Amador holding just a slight edge in scoring, 14-10, 13-10, 11-10, over the final three periods.

"They can run the court," Cathcart said. "They had a lot of fast breaks."

Krystal Lawrence paced Escalon with 10 points, including going 4-for-6 from the free throw line.

Gallego and Breanna Brodie had eight points each, with four from Shayleen Archer and two each from Bacay and Hannah Yarborough to round out the scoring.

The JV girls lost a 44-23 decision to Argonaut on Friday, staying close in the first quarter, down just 12-9 after that frame. From there, though, the home team took control, outscoring Escalon 12-4, 11-5 and 9-5 over the final three quarters.

Jenna Price had six points to lead the team, Elysha Bergwerff added five.

"Their JV is pretty good," said Cathcart of Argonaut.

She coached the Escalon JV girls on Friday in the absence of JV coach Sandi French.

This week, the girls head to Linden on Wednesday, Jan. 14 for a contest and then will be home to host Summerville on Friday, Jan. 16. Games begin at 4:30 p.m. with the freshmen, followed by JV action at 6 p.m. and varsity at 7:30 p.m.