Clovis High girls basketball reflect on historic season after state title loss

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KFSN) -- It was not the ending the Cougars hoped for, but their play concluded with position and appreciation alternatively than disappointment pursuing their nonaccomplishment successful the Division I girls authorities title game.

Matched up against McDonald's All-American and Kansas signee Cydnee Bryant, Clovis High fell to Centennial of Corona 73-66 connected Friday.

In a postgame property conference, the squad expressed gratitude for 1 different and for a play that pushed them to caller heights.

Head manager Cooper Steele said the infinitesimal ne'er felt excessively large for his players.

"We've played successful Selland Arena, we've played successful 2 of the apical teams successful the nation, we vie each azygous day. Doesn't astonishment maine 1 bit, I knew we'd beryllium acceptable for the moment," Steele said.

Yasmin Aguilera acceptable the code early, making some the archetypal and past 3-pointers of the game.

She finished 7 for 10 from the tract and acceptable a authorities grounds for astir made shots successful a Division I girls authorities final.

"We tin conflict with everyone and we'll play to the precise extremity playing hard and springiness it our all," Aguilera said.

The Cougars stayed wrong scope precocious down a fourth-quarter propulsion from Sadie Sin, who scored 19 points and added 7 assists.

Sin, a Long Beach State commit, kept her squad successful contention until the last seconds.

"Sadie is the astir selfless superstar I've ever met, idiosyncratic who scores 2,000 points doesn't stock the shot similar she does but she did it she sacrificed she could've gotten 3,000 if she wanted," Steele said.

For Sin, the nonaccomplishment marked the last crippled of her precocious schoolhouse career.

"To marque it to the precise past crippled of my precocious schoolhouse vocation - lone crippled that anyone could truly marque it to truthful it's a bully feeling," she said.

The Cougars faced a size disadvantage against the Centennial Huskies astatine astir each position, thing Steele said stood retired good earlier the title matchup.

"We saw them successful Vegas successful October, and we were like, look astatine those large girls, ideate if we had to play them," helium said.

Despite the mismatch, the Cougars matched the Huskies' physicality passim the game, including the closing moments erstwhile the seniors realized it would beryllium the past clip they shared the court.

"It's not astir trying to regenerate a constituent guard, it's astir trying to regenerate the benignant of idiosyncratic Sadie Sin is, it's trying to simulate the enactment ethic that Yazmin Aguilera has," Steele said. The sacrifice that Jaylyn Jasso and Taylor Neal-Larkin person made. We're not replacing players, we're trying to capable the shoes of large people."

The Cougars decorativeness the play arsenic NorCal determination champions and authorities rubric crippled participants, achievements the programme had ne'er reached before.

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