Brea Olinda girls basketball coach Jeff Sink has said multiple times this season that his team is probably “a year away.”
Maybe the Wildcats have taken that distinction to heart and are trying to prove wrong the coach who has led Brea to four state titles.
No. 2 Brea proved again it is the class of the Crestview League on Tuesday night with a 60-40 win over No. 7 Foothill at Brea Olinda High. It is the Wildcats’ third straight double-digit win over a county top-10 team.
Junior guard Reili Richardson stood out with 17 points and nine rebounds, senior Shaylissa Jarrett matched Richardson’s scoring total and freshman Tyiona Watkins added 15 points and 12 rebounds.
Defense was the Wildcats’ strength throughout, however, and the trio of leading scorers more than played their part. Richardson created havoc on the perimeter with a game-high seven steals, while Jarrett and Watkins took turns locking down Sydney Sharp, Foothill’s best shooter.
“That’s all I preach,” Sink said of the Brea defense. “We have good one-on-one players, so we utilize them. In girls basketball, if you’re a good defensive team, you can play with anybody.”
It was a similar story for Foothill (17-4, 1-2), after scoring a season-low 10 points in the first half of a loss to El Dorado last week. The Knights again struggled early, missing their first 14 shoots from the floor, allowing Brea (18-2, 3-0) to open a 14-0 lead.
“We definitely have to — myself included — figure out a way to get us to come out with a little more fire and a little more energy,” Foothill coach Vince Namba said. “And this team (Brea Olinda), if you get behind, they’re not going to fall apart.”
Foothill got 14 points and 10 rebounds from senior forward Kaylani Maiava and 10 points from Sharp, but had trouble finding consistent scoring from other sources.
The Knights did make two substantial runs in the second half. They scored the first six points of the third quarter — when Brea started the second half 0 of 11 from the floor — and started the fourth on a 9-0 run, but never cut the deficit to single digits and Brea countered with runs of its own each time.
Still, Sink is skeptical of what Brea’s relative success means at this point in the season.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Sink said. “What it means is we’re in the dog days. We could get spanked next time we play by both (Foothill) and El Dorado. I have no illusions about that.”
In the Trinity League:
No. 1 Mater Dei 74, Rosary 25: The Monarchs (20-1, 4-0) did just fine without Katie Lou Samuelson, who was held out of the game because of a knee injury suffered Monday. The Monarchs cruised to their 58th straight league win behind 20 points from UCLA-bound forward Ally Rosenblum and 17 from LMU commit Andee Velasco.
The Royals (11-11, 0-4) were paced by Annabella Higgs, who finished with a team-high seven points.
Mater Dei coach Kevin Kiernan hopes Samuelson will be able to play in Thursday’s game against No. 4 JSerra.
In the Sunset League:
No. 10 Los Alamitos 46, Edison 39: The Griffins (16-5, 5-0) escaped with a close win over the visiting Chargers (12-8, 3-2). Junior guard Dani Iwami scored a game-high 18 points for Los Alamitos, and teammate Brianna Flynn added 11 points and Bayley Hagino contributed 10. Jenny Kwok was the only Edison player to score in double figures, with 10 points.
Contact the writer: jbalan@ocregister.com
