Foothill Roundup
Men's basketball
The Foothill College women's basketball team's hopes of reaching the state tournament ended last Friday with a 75-53 loss at Sierra in the northern regionals.
The freshmen-laden Owls, the No. 8 seed, played scared against top seed Sierra, according to Foothill coach Jody Craig.
"We were intimidated," she said. "We missed shots we should have made, and we weren't aggressive."
Foothill was out-rebounded 50-29, and Ekuah Ramsey was the team's only player to score in double figures (20 points).
The Owls (22-11) trailed by 15 at intermission, then went on a 6-0 run to open the second half. But Sierra (33-1) pulled away with eight minutes left, going on an 8-0 spurt.
Foothill had better luck March 2 in its second-round game, beating Sacramento City 73-66 in Los Altos Hills.
The Owls got off to a slow start but flourished at the finish against No. 9 Sacramento.
We didn't start to play well until the last eight minutes of the game," Craig said.
Line Kongeskov paced Foothill with 24 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. Ramsey added 16 points and 12 rebounds.
Foothill ended its playoff run March 3 with a 66-60 second-round loss at Porterville.
The 14th-seeded Owls never led against No. 3 Porterville and fell behind by as many as 19 points in the opening half.
Foothill (18-13) fought its way back in the second half, though, pulling within 56-54 with three minutes to play.
"We started to relax and we played really hard," coach Todd Petersen said. "We started making shots and getting defensive stops."
But Porterville (28-4) maintained its advantage by hitting some key free throws down the stretch. For the game, Porterville made 30 of its 41 foul shots.
Foothill attempted 12 fewer free throws and was called for 11 more fouls than Porterville. Petersen wasn't too happy with the discrepancy.
"The refs were terrible," Petersen said. "We couldn't get any calls."
The officials may have been influenced by Porterville's raucous fans, according to Petersen. The coach said the crowd of about 2,000 loudly booed every call against the home team.
Forward O.J. Longmire gave Foothill something to cheer about, finishing with a team-high 20 points. Guard Tyler McClenahan chipped in 11 points for the Owls.