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Santa Clarita Sports Report – March 6, 2017

Santa Clarita Sports Report, March 6, 2017. This is your place for Santa Clarita’s 2016/17 Foothill League spring sports. Find all the latest news and updates on your hometown schools here as they compete in the Foothill League, Heritage League, Western State Conference and GSAC.

Happy 45th birthday to the one and only Shaquille O’Neal

Girls Basketball CIF-SS Division 1AA Championship

7 Canyon 45

1 Valencia 50

The Valencia Vikings, Division 1AA’s best team all season, capped their season with a divisional championship banner, the first in program history.

Saturday afternoon at the Honda Center in Anaheim, the Vikings put it all on display against archrival Canyon, leading from the opening tip to the final buzzer in the 50-45 victory.

Valencia got out to a 22-9 advantage in the first half in large part due to offensive balance that didn’t call for leading scorer Kayla Konrad’s help til late in the second quarter. It was Chyanne Pagkalinawan’s eleven early points that helped the Vikings build a lead that would rescue them in the end. She would finish with twelve for the game.

Canyon point guard Talia Taufaasau (15 points) kept the Cowboys around late in the first half, but it was poor outside shooting that plagued a team with a significant size advantage inside with Rachel Bowers (ten points and eight rebounds). The Cowboys shot 0-for-6 from beyond the arc in the first half, and just 1-for-12 for the game. Canyon cut the lead to eight with fewer than three minutes to play in the half, and from there on it became the Kayla Konrad Show.

The Foothill League Player of the Year and UC Davis-bound Konrad closed the half with seven points to give her 14 after sixteen minutes and the Valencia lead was 31-21. She would finish with a game-high 23.

Opening minutes of the third quarter were a little sloppy with turnovers on both sides, and Canyon kept hanging around. The longer the Cowboys stayed in it, the tighter Valencia began to play, making for a pressure-filled fourth quarter.

Rachel Bowers hit a baseline jumper from midrange with 3:29 to play in the game that made it 43-38 Valencia, the closest it had been since the opening minutes. Eventually, Canyon would get within one possession, 45-43, with less than two minutes to go. But Kenadee Honaker and the Vikings outworked the Cowboys down the stretch. Honaker made a number of hustle plays and Valencia made the clutch free throws to close the game, 50-45.

Now, both teams look ahead to the CIF State Division II Championships, a 32-team tournament pitting the best the state has to offer to crown a champion.

Canyon, an eighth seed, will host Bishop Montgomery, and six-seed Valencia welcomes Bakersfield to Valencia HS. Tip-off for both games is Wednesday night at 7 pm.

KHTS AM-1220 is your place for the 2016/17 spring sports season and the Santa Clarita sports report. If you have any news and notes about our teams to share please send them to jp@hometownstation.com and follow us @KHTSSports on Twitter.

KHTS AM 1220 - Santa Clarita Radio

Santa Clarita Sports Report – March 6, 2017

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About Justin Powell

Justin moved to the San Fernando Valley from the Inland Empire in 2011 to complete his BA of Communications degree at California State University, Northridge. Just a few months after getting his degree he moved to Valencia and started as an intern at AM-1220 KHTS, and was promoted to Sports Reporter within a year. Though Justin is still relatively new to the Santa Clarita Valley, he is an avid sports fan and passionate about building the sports department at KHTS into a special source for local high school sports.