CHICO — Three days after one of the most exciting finishes in Pleasant Valley athletics’ history, the Vikings’ girls basketball season came to a close in the CIF NorCal Division II final for a second straight season.
The No. 3 seed PV defeated No. 10 Oakland Tech on a buzzer-beating fadeaway with .5 seconds remaining Saturday to advance, but Tuesday the No. 4 seed Colfax came to jam-packed Varley Gym and defeated the Vikings 52-48.
After the come-from-behind win Saturday and the closely fought battle Tuesday, where nearly all of the PV’s starters played all 40 minutes in both games, the Vikings simply ran out of gas.
The Vikings carried their momentum from Saturday into the first quarter Tuesday, going on a 13-2 run to start. But it was the second and third quarters when the Falcons chipped away at the lead, as the Vikings struggled to get back in transition defense and their shots did not go down.
Coflax scored six points in the first quarter, but followed that with 19 points in the second quarter, 16 in the third, and 11 in the fourth. Forward Ava Dunn provided strong defense in the fourth quarter, recording three of her five blocks. She added a team-high 13 rebounds.
“We started out great, we went on a run there, our defense was pretty good all night, but we got tired,” said Vikings’ coach Bob Paddock.
Colfax’s Kaia Diederich’s had nine of her 18 points in the second half for the Falcons, and Laurlyn Massick had 10 of her 14 in the second half.
“We didn’t make our free throws at the end like we normally do, a lot of things we normally do that didn’t happen tonight,” Paddock said. “It’s hard to say why. We beat Oakland Tech, we play a smaller school, and maybe we were just physically tired.”
PV’s leading scorer and the hero from Saturday, AJ Gambol led the Vikings with 31 points, but it took her 35 shots to do so. The Vikings’ second leading scorer, Maddux Wilson, (14.2 PPG) struggled to get open all night long against a tight man-to-man defense by the Falcons, as she finished with seven points on 3-of-13 shooting.
“AJ tried to make some shots she normally would make, but her legs were kind of off balance I thought,” Paddock said. “We couldn’t get the ball to Maddux for a shot. They played good D. they’re a small school, but they play good man-to-man D, so it’s hard to get open. We tried to run some plays for Maddux early, but she didn’t make them. Then we never got the ball to her again and she’s our second-leading scorer.”
Caitlyn Vickery, the lone senior for the Vikings who provides a strong presence on the offensive glass and sets up a lot of shooters with her passing ability, got in foul trouble and was limited in minutes in the second half. She got her fourth foul with 4:50 left in the third quarter, re-entered the game with 5:00 left in the fourth quarter, and fouled out with 2:21 remaining.
“We’re going to lose her hustle, her tenacity, because she just gets after it all the time,” Paddock said about his senior. “You can’t replace that.”
After the Vikings’ win against a tall and athletic Oakland Tech, many thought the Vikings had their trip to the state finals ready. Gambol said after Saturday’s game, “This is the one that we knew we needed to get by. We know that Colfax is a good team, but we know that we’re better than Colfax. We know if we can get past this game, we are going to the state championship and that’s what we needed to do.”
Paddock said he needed to get his team with the right mindset and take it game-by-game, and Gambol admitted after the game Tuesday the Vikings’ mindset wasn’t what it needed to be.
“We came off really hot, and we came in expecting that we were going to win the game,” Gambol said. “I think that was the issue again. We’ve done that a few times this season, coming off a big last win it’s the pressure. We got too cocky in the first quarter, then they came back. We tried to fight, we tried to claw, but it is what it is.”
The Vikings, who have won the Northern Section title the last three seasons with this group, will look to make one final push for the state championship with seven juniors returning for their senior season in 2023-24.
“We just need to do the little things better,” Gambol said. “Once again, same thing as last year, we just need to do all the little things like play defense and rebound. We have the team chemistry, we have the offensive stuff, it’s the other things that are going to get us there. We’re going to miss Cait a lot. She did a lot for our team.”
