An impressive game unfolded at Long Beach Poly Saturday morning as the Hughes Owls put on a dominant performance against the Bancroft Bruins in the girls’ basketball All-City Division 1 championship. Led by coach Robert Borg, the Owls ended the game with a 70-28 win.
“We’re undefeated right now, the season’s going really well,” said coach Borg, “we’ve got a lot of young talent and we’ve got some strong eighth graders this year.”
The pace of the game was set by the Owls in the first quarter who put up a solid 23 points against the Bruins’ 11 points. After Bruin Taelor Elam opened the game with a layup in the first minute, the Owls stole the show and never looked back. The opening was headlined by Owl Bailey Seaton who scored 13 points in the quarter.
“Bailey has been outstanding all year, so she just continued to shine,” said coach Borg “She’s a sixth grader, one of the returners for next year.”
Hughes pulled away from the Bruins by a large margin of 39-20 in the second quarter. Bancroft came out with Skylar Robinson making two consecutive free throws in the first 20 seconds of the quarter, but they were unable to control the ball in a drought of nearly two minutes. Ending this drought was Madison Bradford who sunk a three pointer. Mililani Ayala responded with three layups that kept the Owls in control.
“Going into the second half, I just wanted to move the ball a lot and just keep playing as hard as we could,” said Borg. “They’re a good team so I didn’t wanna give them anything to work with.”
Although Hughes had a clear lead, they showed no intention of letting off the gas with a total of 15 points scored in the third quarter. Ayala stole the show once again in this quarter putting up 6 points to count towards her total of 20 points during the game, leaving her as the top scorer of the game. Contributing to her efforts was Leilan Sieng who in the fourth minute caught a rebound and maneuvered through the Bruins defense to score. The quarter ended with Hughes up 54-24.
“Mililani hurt her knee halfway through the game,” said coach Borg. “She toughed it out. She finished strong in the second half.”
The fourth quarter was taken by 8th grader Leilah Sieng who after putting up the first two of the quarter a minute and a half in, traded efforts with Ayala. All together, the Owls led a fierce battle against the Bruins to claim the Division 1 title.
“We’ve got a nice set of girls coming back next year. I’m losing some really big eighth graders so it’ll be tough, but we’re always up for the challenge,” said Borg.
