Saugus girls basketball shows toughness in win over Lincoln in state playoffs

SAUGUS – Saugus junior forward Rachel Correa set a hard screen in the middle of the key for teammate EvaMarie Rios, sending her teammate’s defender flailing to the floor.

Correa followed that up by drawing a shooting foul that she used to extend Saugus’ lead late in the third quarter.

It was that toughness that helped Saugus’ girls basketball team get a 46-39 win over Lincoln of San Diego in the first round of the CIF State Division II playoffs on Tuesday.

The Centurions, who are the No. 4 seed for Division II in the SoCal regional, earned their first victory in the state playoffs by beating Lincoln, the No. 13 seed.

“Defensively, they did everything we asked them to do,” Saugus head coach Anthony Falasca said of his team’s players.

The Centurions will host No. 5 seed Grossmont of El Cajon on Thursday at 7 p.m.

Saugus led 8-6 at the end of the first quarter. The Centurions went on a 10-2 run to extend their lead to 18-8 by the four-minute mark of the second quarter.

The Centurions’ defense forced multiple turnovers during that stretch and began to take control of the game.

Saugus overpowered a bigger Lincoln team in rebounding. A plethora of offensive rebounds by Saugus led to 3-pointers from Rios, who had a team-high 13 points, and junior Samantha Cortez, who made two 3-pointers and finished with seven points.

Correa had 12 points, but it was her work on the boards that helped make the difference for the Centurions.

“Rachel, we’ve been working with her in the second part of the season on rebounding outside of her area,” Falasca said about Correa’s development.

“Usually, she rebounds when the ball comes to her or when she’s boxing out. And we’ve really focused on letting her roam and not making her box out, just making her go get rebounds. Draymond Green is the best example of that… Ron Artest, Dennis Rodman, she has that caliber of rebounding skill if we allow her to go get it.”

Lincoln cut Saugus’ lead to five points by going on a 6-0 run out of halftime. But an offensive board from Saugus senior forward Natalie Weathers led to a Jasmine Garcia 3-pointer from the left wing, which put the Centurions up 27-19 with 4:30 remaining in the third quarter.

After Saugus went into the fourth quarter with a 10-point lead, Lincoln sliced its deficit back down to six with 2:26 left.

At that point, Saugus senior Brianna Burroughs was set to shoot two free throws after a Lincoln foul under the basket. Spartans coach James Townsend was then called for a technical for arguing the call.

Garcia followed up Burroughs’ two made free throws by making both technical foul shots and Saugus’ lead ballooned to 43-33.

The Hornets weren’t done fighting back. They scored five points to cut Saugus’ advantage to 43-38 with 1:30 remaining.

Saugus was able to fend off Lincoln, however, as Rios drained a pair of free throws with 57 seconds left to put the Centurions up 45-39. They forced one last turnover shortly afterward to move on in the state playoffs and continue their historic postseason run.