The Ohlone Lady Renegades basketball team started the season with a bang on Saturday as they beat the Eagles of Feather River by the score of 78-59. Ohlone came out looking sharp from the get-go, playing with an energy and intensity that lasted the entire length of the game. This was the first win as a head coach for Julie Allender, who spent the past three seasons as an assistant. “It feels really good,” said Allender following the game. “I felt confident going in. We had a couple real good weeks of practice and their competitiveness really showed the past week.” The Lady Renegades started the game very active on defense, forcing many turnovers that led to fast-break points to get an early lead. Ohlone also had its share of turnover issues in the first half, but that was fixed early in route to a dominant effort on both sides of the ball that resulted in an early lead that the Lady Renegades would not relinquish. When Ohlone had the ball, they made the most of their possessions, making more than 50 percent of their shots, while keeping ball movement a huge factor in confusing the Eagle defense. Jasmine Rubin was the offensive star of the game, scoring 30 points on the night on 14 of 22 shooting, including back to back 3 pointers early in the game. “She did a great job and took great shots,” Allender said, regarding the sophomore. Rubin also contributed 10 rebounds for Ohlone, with an impressive 6 offensive boards, however she was not alone controlling the boards in the game. The Lady Renegades did an excellent job out-rebounding Feather River all night, gathering 39 rebounds overall. Ohlone built their biggest lead of the night late in the first half when they took a 21-point lead. Feather River grinded the rest of the half, cutting the lead to nine points just before halftime. Ohlone would take no part in letting the Eagles get back in the game.Ganeaya Rogers nailed an off-balance deep two-pointer as the buzzer went off to signal halftime to crush the souls of the Eagles and give Ohlone a 14-point lead. The Lady Renegades didn’t quite dominate as much, but still played a solid second half, outscoring Feather River by five points. Rubin’s 30 points was by far a game high. Rogers had 16 points on the night, making exactly half of her shots at a nice 50 percent clip. The Milpitas High alum Rogers nearly had a triple-double on the night, finishing with nine assists and eight rebounds. “Getting out in the open court and passing, that’s what she does best,” Allender said regarding Rogers’ style of play. Crystal McLaughlin dominated the boards for the Lady Renegades, finishing with 12 rebounds overall, and keeping the Eagles’ posts in check not allowing Feather River to get over 10 points in the post. “I felt like we took a lot of good shots, we did a good job on the defensive glass, we had a little trouble early on with turnovers, but we cleaned that up. They played really hard, and we have great kids.” Allender added. “We rebounded well for our size, we really preach to them boxing out, trying to win the battle of the boards and they’re really buying in to what we’re preaching.” The Renegades take on the Mustangs of Delta College tonight, at 6 p.m. in Epler Gym. Last year the Mustangs finished in the top four of the state and are projected to play at just as strong of a level this season, so we are sure to be in store for a great game.
By Jacob Schabert
Staff writer
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