While defense wins championships, some offense is needed along the way. The Mariners endured a four hour van ride to Redding to face Shasta College on Saturday, but unfortunately the offense failed to make the trip. After a sluggish first quarter the Mariners began to find their rhythm but it was short lived as the Shasta Knights poured it on in the second half for a 73-30 victory.
Shasta jumped out to a 7-0 lead as the Mariners were held scoreless until Molly Carmody scored on a driving layup. COM managed just a Jaychelle Price jumper in the first quarter as Shasta led 14-4 at the end of one.
The second quarter began a bit better, as Darrian Cross made a layup, and a three pointer and Price had a three point play to bring the score to 24-13, however Shasta hit a pair of open three pointers and a transition layup to take a 33-18 lead at halftime.
The game came unraveled in the third quarter as the Eagles scored the first 15 points of the period before Cross broke the seal with a driving layup. The Mariners managed just four points in the third and trailed 53-22 heading to the fourth. Shasta kept pouring it on with an additional 20 points in the four with the Mariners able to just reach the 30 point mark prior to the end of the game.
Despite the loss there were some positives for Assistant Coach Jared Feldman “We had a lot of great looks at the basket, but we couldn’t get them to fall early and it spiraled on us from that point.”
Darrian Cross led the Mariners with 12 points, and added six rebounds, an assist, a steal and a block. Ureka Abbushi filled up the stat sheet with four points, nine rebounds, an assist, three steals and a block.
The Mariners next game is at Skyline College on December 2nd, at 5:30PM.