Fresno City women earn third straight trip to state finals

By Bryant-Jon Anteola, Fresno Bee

The Fresno City women's basketball team is going back to the state semifinals for a third straight year.

No. 2 Fresno City mauled No. 3 Santa Rosa 60-45 in a Northern California Regional final Saturday night at the Rams gym. The Rams built their lead up to as many as 25 points with an uptempo attack and feisty defense that proved to be too much for the Bear Cubs.

"That's probably the best defense we've played all year," coach Brian Tessler said. "The ladies followed and executed the game plan and limited them to one shot. When we got the ball, we pushed the tempo and outran them or set up a nice inside-outside game."

Fresno City forward Keyora Wharry finished with a team-best 19 points and four assists, at times attracting much of Santa Rosa's defense attention then kicking it out for an outside shot.

Teammate Ali Orlich benefited and drained 4 of 5 3-pointers and finished with 14 points.

The Rams trailed 7-2 to start but methodically worked back into it with shutdown halfcourt defense. They built a 21-9 lead midway through the first half and closed out the first half with a 29-7 run to take a 31-16 lead.

Fresno City expanded its lead to 57-32 in the second half behind several fastbreak scores created off Santa Rosa turnovers.

"The way we played tonight, I think we showed we're ready for state," Wharry said. "We knew what we could do and we played to our strengths. We just were running them out."

Fresno City (29-3), the No. 2 NorCal seed, moves on to face SoCal No. 1 seed Ventura (30-3) on Friday at Cerritos College while NorCal No. 1 Delta (27-5) plays Mt. San Antonio (28-4) in the other state final four game. Last year, the Rams lost to Mt. SAC 69-57 in a state semifinal.