Valley Faces Team at Home on the Road

The Thunderbirds of Merritt College landed in L.A. this morning, but according to an assistant coach its players are still airborne as they prepare for today’s showdown with Valley College.

“All week the girls have been practicing three feet off the floor,” Merritt women’s basketball assistant Grover Garvin said. “We’re excited as heck to be playing in L.A. In terms of being down there, playing an L.A. team in L.A., we have a lot going for us.”

Merritt, in Oakland, is not playing the NBA’s Clippers, so why all the excitement over coming South?

“We play our best games under pressure, on the road,” Garvin said. “This season, we played well only when we had to.”

The Thunderbirds (23-8) did just that on Saturday, coming from behind to beat Santa Rosa, 48-44, on the road to earn the right to play Valley in the first round of the state community college women’s basketball tournament. And earlier this season, Merritt was down by 18 to highly regarded Riverside in a tournament at College of the Desert and came back to win, 68-63.

Seventh-seeded Merritt and No. 2-seeded Valley (25-4) will meet at 4 p.m. at Cypress College, with the Thunderbirds in an enviable situation, Garvin said.

“And now the pressure’s off because we made the final eight,” Garvin said. “This isn’t the best team we’ve ever had and we still have made it this far.”

Merritt, champion of the Golden Gate Conference, has made it this far primarily on the shooting of forward Yasmin Gray, who led her conference with an 18.5 points-per-game average, and freshman guard Audrey Moore (14). Another guard, Monique James, averages 10 points, 5 steals and 5 assists.

Inside, the Thunderbirds rely on 6-1 sophomore center La Cole Brooks, who for the past two seasons has been one of the most prolific rebounders (12.7 average) and highly regarded defensive players in the state.

“We’re small but fast,” Garvin said. “We normally run a full-court zone press for the entire game. We play a zone on defense and count on speed and shooting on offense.”

And that’s just fine with Valley. The Monarchs, whose defense ranks fifth statistically in the state, also play a zone, but do not press.

“I cannot stand to give up easy baskets,” Valley Coach Jim Stephens has said.

Valley also fields a potent offense, despite a team of nine freshman and just three sophomores.

Freshman Dametra Johnson is averaging 18 points and 10 rebounds a game and sophomore Maryjo Testa is averaging nearly 11 points.

A knee injury sidelined Testa for three games. Valley lost all three. But Testa is back in form. Against MiraCosta on Friday, she converted a three-point play to give the Monarchs a 57-55 regional playoff win.

Another freshman, Jeannie Washington, has averaged 10 points and nine rebounds a game and freshman guard Bernadette Tillis is among the state’s leaders in assists with a 7.3 average.

Valley is enjoying one of its best seasons ever and has shown steady improvement over the last three years. The Monarchs were 19-11 last season and 13-15 the year before.