BEAVERTON -- It’s going to take a little time for Southridge to find its way after losing some key pieces from last season’s repeat 6A girls basketball champion.
But Tuesday night’s 76-55 home win over 5A power La Salle Prep represented a positive step, especially with the Skyhawks coming off a loss to Tigard that ended a 44-game winning streak against Oregon teams and dropped them to second in the OSAAtoday 6A coaches poll.
Junior forward Cameron Brink had 29 points and eight rebounds and junior point guard McKelle Meek added 19 points for Southridge (3-1), which will be idle until heading to Arizona for the Nike Tournament of Champions Dec. 19-22.
“I was real happy with the performance today,” Meek said. “Last time, we didn’t come out to play until the last four or five minutes. Today we played kind of the whole game.”
Skyhawks coach Michael Bergmann said he liked his team’s effort.
“That’s really what the theme was,” Bergmann said. “We’ve got to have better effort and be athletic and make things hard on a team.”
In the 54-50 loss to Tigard, Southridge struggled with its shooting. Bergmann believed the Skyhawks took too many early three-pointers, so he emphasized working the ball around to find better shots, and if they were to take three-pointers, to make the extra pass for a cleaner look.
Southridge executed crisply in the first half to build a 46-30 lead over the Falcons (1-2). The Skyhawks shot 59.4 percent (19 for 32) in the first half as Brink dominated inside for 19 points and the shooters connected on 7 of 13 from three-point range.
“They shot lights out,” La Salle Prep coach Kelli Wedin said. “We took our chances. They didn’t shoot well against Tigard, and they shot really well in the first half.”
Meek, who is adjusting to more of a scoring role this season now that Maggie Freeman and Natalie Hoff have graduated, made four three-pointers in the first half. She finished 4 of 10 from behind the arc.
“She was really aggressive,” Bergmann said of Meek, a third-year starter. “She had a bad shooting game last game, but she knows that she’s a great shooter, and we want her shooting the ball. We’re always a better team when she’s taking good shots.”
Meek said she likes looking for her offense more.
“It gets me more aggressive,” Meek said. “We’ve played together from the second grade, and I had that role until about the ninth grade, and then there were other players. So now it’s my time to step up again.”
The Stanford-bound Brink had a typical all-around performance, using her 6-foot-5 frame to score over the much smaller Falcons and shutting off the interior on defense. She also showed off her athleticism with a steal and acrobatic, buzzer-beating basket to end the first quarter.
La Salle Prep was eager for the challenge against Southridge after a 50-44 loss to Springfield on Saturday, which dropped the Falcons from first to third in the 5A coaches poll. They got 21 points and five three-pointers from 5-11 sophomore point guard Addison Wedin, but didn’t have the firepower to push the Skyhawks.
Wedin, who scored 39 points in the team’s season-opening win over Crescent Valley, bounced back from a nine-point outing against Springfield in which she was limited to six shots.
The Falcons played their second game without senior guard Alyson Miura, a transfer from Clackamas who is headed to USC. Miura tweaked her shoulder in the season opener and is likely to miss a few weeks, according to Kelli Wedin.
Despite being shorthanded, La Salle Prep showed grit against Southridge. The Falcons adjusted their zone defense to hold the Skyhawks to four points in the third quarter, drawing within 50-41, but Southridge pulled away with a 26-point fourth quarter.
Senior forward Jessica Loboy and sophomore guard Amanda Sisul added 10 and 9 points, respectively, for La Salle Prep.
“I thought we played really hard. There were so many good things to take out of that game,” Kelli Wedin said. “They’re just warriors, and we left it all out there like we asked them to. And we got better from that game, for sure.”
