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Pride fall to GV; still No. 2 in CCC
Pitman girls2
Senior Mika Jimenez maintains control of the ball as her Golden Valley opponent follows closely behind during the game Tuesday. - photo by CANDY PADILLA / The Journal

The Pitman (13-6 overall, 4-2 CCC) High girls basketball team had an opportunity to redeem their loss to Golden Valley (19-4 overall, 6-0 CCC) from earlier in the year but things didn’t pan out the way they expected.

Instead, the Pride struggled to find the basket and in one of the poorest shooting performances of the year, fell to GV for the second time in a much closer game, 45-32.

“I would say this time we handled the pressure better than the first time, but we struggled to knock down shots,” said Pitman head coach Dustin Curtiss. “...we missed a lot of shots, they played good defense on us, but shots we should make we didn’t make them.”

The Pride are still in second place in the Central California Conference at 4-2 with both of their losses coming at the hands of GV.

Stephanie Moore and Abbee Croninger each caused problems for the Pride once again but were limited to what they did.

Each side took the lead in the opening quarter, with Pitman going up 8-6, but when the Pride went on a run, GV answered back in force.

At the half, Pitman was down 16-10, but failed to find their groove to mount a comeback.

Cerah Moren had the best performance for the Pride, scoring a team-high 14 points for the game and adding 5 steals.

Pitman never led again but with six minutes left, the score was cut to 37-31. The rally didn't materialize as GV finished on a 9-1 run to end the game. Croninger and Moore had 6 of the team’s 9 points during that stretch as they eventually sealed their ninth consecutive win.

“Tonight what happened is we would go on a nice run to make it close but then they would all of a sudden bump the lead up to 10 or 12 and so we were constantly chasing them,” said Curtiss.

Moore had 10 of her 15 points in the second half and Croninger had a game-high 16 points for the night.

“Their two big players in Moore and Croninger were just killing us, they hit the big shots when their team needed them,” Curtiss added.

Pitman’s next game will be on the road against Atwater (3-3) at 7:15 p.m. Thursday.

 

“We have huge games for us coming up with playoff implications,” said Curtiss. “There is still light at the end of tunnel, reachable goals, if we win the next four we are in, if we do our job then we will get the goal we want and hopefully get back to work and play a tough game on the road at Atwater, ready to go.”