Trips to Selland Arena have become much more than commonplace for the Clovis West Golden Eagles girls basketball team.
Entering Saturday night as seven-time defending Central Section Division-l champions, Clovis West had another chance to stake its claim at history in the first ever open division final.
With head coach Craig Campbell’s signature pressure defense, the Golden Eagles triumphed in a big way with a 60-49 win over the team’s TRAC rival Clovis North Broncos.
Junior guard Nikki Tom led the Golden Eagles in scoring with 16 points, also kicking in five assists and two steals. She was part of the same Golden Eagles squad that defeated the Broncos last season in the Division I final.
“It means a lot to me because we worked so hard since December and we’ve grown so much as a team and I think our growth is the most improvement that we’ve had…” she said.
Tom, Kendall Jackson and Aaliyah Seuell provided the scoring punch, combining for 36 points, but it was the patented full-court style of pressure that allowed the Golden Eagles to get separation.
The Golden Eagles raced out to a 12-0 lead, and it was at that point that Tom felt that her team had this game in the bag.
“After we got that lead we kind of calmed down and knew that we got this game,” Tom said.
And with defense like the Golden Eagles showed on Saturday, those words rang true.
Clovis West worked hard to force Broncos star guard Savannah Tucker to take difficult shots, and it worked.
Tucker struggled mightily in the first quarter, going without a single point. She started to find her rhythm in the second with 5, but the Broncos as a team put up just eight in the period.
It all added up to a devastating 37-13 halftime advantage for Clovis West.
But the Broncos would not go down quietly into that good night without delivering a fight. Tucker scored 10 of the Broncos 16 points in the third quarter, including two three-pointers en route to 23 on the night. Couple that with just nine points in the quarter for Clovis West and the Broncos still had a faint sign of life, trailing 46-29.
However, the early deficit proved to be too much to overcome, despite outscoring Clovis West by 13 in the second half.
“We have a bad habit. This is the third game in the last six that we got out to a big lead and kind of coasted in the second half,” Campbell said. “We definitely played tight and not to lose and that’s just a young team.”
But that young team got it done this year when all the pressure was on, when everyone expected it. And it all boils down to the environment that Campbell creates around the program that the players wholeheartedly buy into.
“We have a phrase that tradition doesn’t graduate,” he said. “It’s not about the championships, it’s about our culture and details and how we conduct ourselves in the community, on the court and in the classroom.”