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Saugus Girls Basketball Falls In Quarterfinal Loss To Fairmont
Saugus senior Libbie McMahan drives to the lane against the Fairmont Prep defense late in the fourth of their quarterfinal matchup. (Wyatt Smith/KHTS Sports)

Saugus Girls Basketball Falls In Quarterfinal Loss To Fairmont

The Saugus girls basketball team’s playoff run came to an end Wednesday night as they lost to Fairmont Prep 43-45 at home in the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 2AA playoffs.

The struggles started early for Saugus, as they could not find answers offensively for Fairmont’s man defense. 

That defense helped Fairmont get out to a 2-15 lead in the first quarter as they were consistently able to expose the Saugus zone defense early for open looks from three and easy entry passes into their low post players.

Saugus junior Eden MacKenzie was able to sink a three with less than a minute to play in the quarter to stop the bleeding.

The shot took the lid off the basket for the Centurions as they tacked on two more baskets to close the gap to 9-15 by the end of the first.

In the second quarter, the Centurions still couldn’t find consistent offense, but some stellar individual play kept the game in reach as MacKenzie got hot and added three more made threes to reach 12 points in the first half.

The Fairmont lead grew by a point in the second as Saugus went into the half down 23-30.

Offensively the struggles continued for Saugus in the third, but they were able to clamp down on defensive and keep their deficit from growing to double digits.

“The defense wasn’t working. I switched off to a different defense and then that worked,” said Saugus Head Coach Jason Conn. “Unfortunately I didn’t switch off quick off enough.”

Fairmont made some halftime adjustments as well. They keyed in on MacKenzie and had Kayla Ishibashi assigned to face guard her the entire second half of play. The tactic proved effective, as she was held scoreless in the second half.

Saugus senior Libbie McMahan had to take over and create shots for her team, as she scored 11 of her 16 points for the night in the second half.

“We started setting better screens, we got people open, we started to push the ball up the floor a little bit, got a little bit more open shot, but it was our defense that kept us in the game,” Conn said. “We only allowed 15 points in the second half and they scored 15 points in the first quarter and that really hurt us, that’s not like us.”

The defensive change gave Fairmont problems and Saugus was able to claw their way back into contention, culminating in a three from senior Monique Febles with less than 30 seconds to play to tie the game up for the first time that night.

Unfortunately for Saugus on the ensuing Fairmont possession, they were able to get it to their leading scorer Mia Yamamoto underneath the basket for the go-ahead bucket to make it 43-45.

Lulu Saloom put up a heave from deep for Saugus on the final possession, but came up short, as the Centurions’ championship dreams were dashed.

“We accomplished three out of the four goals we had planned out,” said Conn. “We wanted to beat Valencia twice, we did. We wanted to win league, we did. We wanted to go undefeated, we did. We wanted to win a CIF championship and we came up two points short.”

KHTS Sports is your place for the 2020 Santa Clarita high school winter sports season and your Santa Clarita Dodgers coverage. 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.

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Saugus Girls Basketball Falls In Quarterfinal Loss To Fairmont

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About Wyatt Smith

Wyatt was born and raised in Santa Clarita. After graduating from Hart High School in 2012, he continued his studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he earned a degree in applied statistics. After a year and a half working in the digital advertising industry, Wyatt left his previous field of work to pursue his interest in writing.