Antelope girls top San Pasqual

WINTERHAVEN The Antelope girls basketball team heads into today's Kofa Holiday Hoops Tournament on quite a hot streak.

The Rams' defense fueled a 15-2 run in the final 6:41 of the second quarter, which proved to be the difference in their 46-35 victory over San Pasqual on Thursday in Winterhaven.

Antelope has now won five in a row.

"They're getting the defense now. We're sticking to man, so that's been helping us," Antelope coach Anna Delgado said. "We've been struggling with our offense, so our offense has usually been coming off our defense."

Meanwhile, members of San Pasqual can go into the winter break with their heads held high.

The Warriors are adjusting to new coach Oscar Chavez, an entirely new system that Chavez said he models after what Cibola boys coach Gary Abercrombie employs, and not to mention they started two weeks later than everyone else.

"That means this team right here (Antelope) had 10 to 12 more practices than we've had," Chavez said. "I was proud of my girls. They played a very good game, and they still need to learn some things they haven't been taught yet philosophically. Once we start to understand those and grasp that a little more then we'll start to play better as a unit."

Dayssy Maldonado scored nine of Antelope's 15 points during the second-quarter surge. She hit all three of her 3-pointers during that span and finished with 11 points for the game.

Antelope guard Rocio Lopez moved from point guard to shooting guard this year because Delgado said she needed more scoring punch from her this season. Lopez scored a game-high 19 points 12 coming in the first half.

Antelope led by as many as 16 points.

Virginia Montague paced San Pasqual with 11 points, while Lorena Joaquin chipped in nine.