Thousand Oaks, CA—The 2023-2024 Colton High girls basketball season is over.
Last night, they faced the no. 1 seed Newbury Park Panthers in the first round of the CIF state championship, who ended the Yellowjackets run with a decisive 59-35 victory.
Colton was seeded no. 16 in division IV, bumped up a division due to their play in the Southern Section tournament.
Captain Savannah Govea played her worst game of the season, pestered all night by the long arms and quick legs of the Panther’s Kimiko Carmer. Carmer’s defense disrupted the Yellowjacket offense, making it difficult to find a rhythm.
With their leader neutralized, it was up to the Yellowjackets to find an answer on defense. For most of the first half, they were equally disruptive. But rebounding remained an issue for Colton, leading to a number of offensive boards for the Panthers that they converted into points.
The score was 9-7, Newbury, after the first quarter. In the second, Colton couldn’t secure a rebound and went into halftime down 11, 27-16.
They looked like their feisty selves after the break with Naomi Ontiveros striking first with a jumper from the middle of the lane, but then Newbury went on a 5-0 run that put Colton down 14.
Turnovers and desperate play ensued and Newbury’s lead continued to climb. By the time the game ended, it felt like an anticlimax for the season as a whole.
Govea led the Yellowjackets with 10 points. Jasmine Jimenez added 6 points and 4 rebounds.
Frustrated by the loss, head coach Keisha Young still tried to stay positive. “A helluva run, it’s just not the way I wanted it to end.”
But end it did, as all runs do.
Nevertheless, it ends a season that is defined by so much more than a single game. It ends with the promise of next season, even as no one on the team is thinking about that right now.
In the meantime, as the sting of a huge loss subsides, these Yellowjackets will come to see that in the annals of Colton High, they are among the greatest champions in school history.
