CV girls, boys reach 4A final 8

Perhaps it was young nerves.

Whatever it was, once the Central Valley girls basketball team found its range, Rogers of Puyallup was run off the court.

Central Valley got rolling in the second half, pulling away 59-30 in a 4A state regional game Saturday at University High School.

The No. 1-ranked Bears (25-0) advance to Tacoma.

The CV boys made it 2 for 2 for the Spokane Valley schools as the Bears handled the Kentridge Chargers 59-48.

Boys

Central Valley 59, Kentridge 48: The basket has looked as big as a pond for Justis Simmons the last month.

Against the Chargers, Simmons made 4 of 8 3-pointers, finishing with 21 points.

“I thought he ran the show well,” CV coach Rick Sloan said. “He hit some big shots for us. And he did a nice job defensively. He came to play. He’s been playing really well. He’s got that look in his eyes. He’s been dialed in the last several games.”

CV trailed 21-16 in the second quarter, but the Bears wrangled control when they went on a 15-0 tear. They led 34-27 at halftime.

“We played a little shaky at the start but our whole goal coming in was to play our style of basketball and we got to that in the second half,” Simmons said. “We played a lot better defense in the second half.”

Kentridge (14-12) used three 3-pointers to pull within 42-38 in the third, but CV never let the Chargers get any closer thereafter.

“I thought their defense was pretty solid,” Sloan said of Kentridge. “They took away some of our offensive rhythm. The fact that we shot the ball well was pretty big.”

Cameron Tucker finished with 15 points and seven rebounds for CV and Josh Thomas had nine rebounds.

Joran Ticeson led Kentridge with 20 points, making 6 of 8 3-pointers.

Girls

Central Valley 59, Rogers (Puyallup) 30: There was a reason the Bears only led 19-8 at halftime.

They made just 7 of 38 shots from the field in the first half. They even took 26 more shots than the Rams (16-12).

CV came out afire to start the third quarter, making its first five shots and finishing the period 13 of 16.

That explains why CV led 50-20 going into the fourth.

“I think we were really excited to have the chance to qualify for the state in Tacoma,” CV’s Lexie Hull said. “I think we needed to calm down in the second half and we came out and did that.”

Hull led the way, finishing with 22 points, nine rebounds and four steals. Her twin sister, Lacie, had 12 points, 11 rebounds, five steals and three assists.

“We got going and it got fun,” Lexie said. “We just kept rolling with it.”

CV coach Freddie Rehkow was sort of glad to see his team struggle in the first half because it might run into similar struggles in the open confines of the Tacoma Dome.

Defense doesn’t have to struggle, though.

“It was nerves. We had the shots, they were good shots we were missing, we just weren’t finishing them,” Rehkow said. “When we went in at halftime we just talked about that we couldn’t shoot any worse and to just keep plugging away. We were starting to find little areas and we just needed to finish.”

So Rehkow challenged his girls to come out and win the first three minutes of the second half.

“I wanted a high level of intensity because that’s going to be the most crucial part of the game,” he said. “They took it to heart.”