Freshman carves up O’Connor in rematch with rival
MARC BUCKHOUT ~MANAGING EDITOR ~ 1/18/2012

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Now 19 games into the season Boulder Creek coaches and teammates are no longer surprised by the skill of freshman Darian Slaga.
“Her teammates trust her,” first-year coach Josiah McDaniel said. “She’s a better decision maker than she was at the start of the season. She’s letting the game come to her. We tell her she simply has to take care of the ball and make the easy play.”
The guard, who seems to make all the plays look easy, has never failed to score in double figures for the Jaguars girls basketball team. Averaging better than 19 points a game on 44 percent shooting Slaga, in fact, has only scored below 15 points once.
The Jaguars (14-5) headed into Thursday’s game looking to avenge one of their five losses, a 54-47 loss to Sandra Day O’Connor on Dec. 17, which left the coach concerned.
“They outhustled us in that game,” McDaniel said. “We talked about it afterwards and said that can’t happen again.”
On Thursday Boulder Creek came out sluggish against O’Connor, which played a
2-3 zone defense against the host Jaguars.
As quickly as he called a timeout, less than three minutes into the game with his team down 6-0, McDaniel rejected the hypothesis that his team looked unsure as to how they wanted to attack the Eagles defense.
“Not at all,” he said. “We knew exactly what we were supposed to do against their zone. We weren’t doing it. That’s why I called timeout.”
Slaga chalked the slow start up to nerves.
“Coach makes it absolutely clear that there is no excuse to turn the ball over against a zone defense,” Slaga said. “At the beginning we were just anxious I think.”
The point guard said she felt like she needed to make some plays to get her team
going offensively.
“I thought later on we mixed it up pretty good and got different people going, but at the start I was looking for my shot,” she said.
After sophomore Molly Collins got the Jaguars on the board with a three pointer from the wing it was Slaga asserting herself as the best player on the floor the rest of the quarter.
On 5-of-5 shooting Slaga scored the last 14 points of the quarter for her team, draining three three-pointers as she turned the team’s 6-0 deficit into a 17-14 lead at the end of the quarter, equaling the Eagles output by herself.
In the second quarter the Jaguars defense helped open the lead as Boulder Creek limited O’Connor to only 1-of-12 shooting. If it weren’t for the Eagles ability to get to the free throw line, where they scored 11 points, the deficit would have been larger than 27-19.
“We pretty much spent the whole Christmas break working on our defense,” Slaga said. “We move pretty well on the flight of the ball.”
In deploying their full-court pressing defense the Jaguars made O’Connor work simply to get the ball into the offensive end of the court.
“We’re pretty fast so it makes a lot of sense for us to play full court defense,” Slaga said.
In the second half O’Connor kept the game within striking distance, again by making a living at the free throw line. Through three quarters 18 of the Eagles 32 points had come from the free throw line. When they were forced to make contested shots the Boulder Creek defense limited the Eagles to 7-of-31 from the field.
“It took us to the fourth quarter, but instead of getting mad we finally adjusted to the way the game was being called,” McDaniel said. “It would be nice to see us make that adjustment earlier, but I like our aggressiveness on defense.”
The coach also was encouraged to have his full compliment of players for the first time this season as both senior Kasey Winter and junior Delaney Swadder returned in reserve roles after missing an extended amount of time due to injuries.
Slaga finished with a game-high 24 points to pace the Jaguars and was joined in double figures by junior Sam Young, who finished with 15 points.
“We threw the ball around too much,” McDaniel said. “We’re still young, so we’ve got a lot of improving to do, but we’re making progress. We’ll get there.”
On Tuesday the Jaguars traveled to Prescott (results unavailable at press time) before a back-to-back set at Cactus Shadows (4-15) Thursday
and home against Mesa (3-13) on Friday.
The Prescott home and home series, Tuesday and then on Jan. 27, book end a stretch where the Jaguars play four straight sub .500 teams, seemingly an opportunity to put together an extended winning streak.

CACTUS SHADOWS
The Falcons went in Tuesday’s matchup against Greenway (results unavailable at press time) looking to put an end to a five-game skid. On Jan. 10 the Falcons fell in a 45-44 loss to Shadow Mountain. Aside from that game though, Cactus Shadows has struggled to be competitive, with recent losses of 19, 26, 33 and 16 points.
After the Thursday matchup with the Jaguars the Falcons will take a second crack at Shadow Mountain, traveling to Phoenix Friday to take on the Matadors for the second time in ten days.