They Didn’t Want Us To Cage The Zoo, So We Caged The Zoo

An in depth look at how the Lady Falcons claimed a long awaited victory over the St. Francis Troubadours. 

With several seconds left in the game, Samantha Earley (’16) walked up to the free throw line to increase the Falcon’s lead over St. Francis by one point. She knew whether she made the shot or not, the Falcons were going to be victorious.

Sam knew they were going to win not because they were ahead, but because of the team’s  intense preparation for the big game.

“The week before we practiced really hard, we knew that it was going to be a really good game.” She explains, “We had a couple games [the week leading up to Holy Hoops] that we knew we were going to win so we took that time to practice.”

On January 9th the Lady Falcons took on the St. Francis Troubadours in the annual Holy Hoops rivalry basketball game. The nail biting game kept the crowd on their feet for the entirety of the game.

Samantha puts it simply, “Our mindset was to win – obviously.”

This game was especially important to her and her fellow seniors because it would be the final time they would be coming up against St. Francis.

“We really wanted to win that game and especially the seniors since it was their last year at home.”

Unfortunately, the Lady Falcons began trailing the Troubadours in the 3rd quarter as SF took an 11 point lead. The Falcons fought hard going into the 4th quarter, minimizing the Troubadour lead to 8 points.

As the Lady Falcons began to fall behind, Earley ensured that their spirits were not crushed,

“We knew that they were more tired than us and we were more conditioned than them. Our mindset was to keep playing the way we were playing.”

The Falcons were relentless in the 4th quarter forcing 10 Troubadour turnovers. With a hard earned comeback, CB out scored St. Francis 22-9 in the final quarter leaving the Falcons victorious by a mere 5 points and a final score of 52-47.

Samantha credits the loud CB cheering sections for motivating and pushing the girls to keep fighting.

“It was the best crowd we’ve ever played for.” She disclosed, “St. Francis missed so many free throws and honestly I think it was because of our crowd. The support they gave us was amazing and we couldn’t thank them enough.”

Junior Kalani Mark (’17) led the team with 18 points as well as 5 rebounds and 5 steals. Following Kalani, Brianna Juniel (’19) recorded her first career double/double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

The Lady Falcons win against the St. Francis Troubadours increased their season record to 10-4 and flip flopped their Sacramento Bee rankings putting CB at number 4 and SF at number 5.

The Lady Falcons won their first league game Thursday night against Vista Del Lago. But Anna Clare Nelson (’18) is optimistic looking forward this season with the hopes of earning another section banner to hang in the Ron Limeberger Gym.

“We are hoping to go undefeated in league and then win the section championship.”