'Make a statement': Delta College women basketball bests San Mateo in playoffs

San Joaquin Delta College women’s basketball showed no mercy in its Northern California Regionals Playoff opener against San Mateo.

The No. 2 seed Mustangs jumped out to an early lead and held on to it for all 40 minutes to beat the Bulldogs 61-41.

“I thought our defense worked really hard and I was just really excited to see the girls execute,” said Gina Johnson, Delta College women’s basketball head coach. “Just all week, we had a great practice and they were really into each other. We made some mistakes, but you know, that's part of growing and we've been growing all year.”

Here are the key takeaways from the Mustangs' second-round victory to punch their ticket to the third round of the playoffs.

Defense leads to offense

It didn’t matter how much Delta College led in this one its defense maintained its intensity all four quarters. From full-court presses to double teams the Mustangs relied on that aggressive approach to shut the Bulldogs' main scorers down in sophomores Joslyn Moore and Jayonnah Carter.

San Mateo was held to just nine points in the first quarter and another nine points in the second. While the Bulldogs struggled, the Mustangs got hot thanks to freshman Senia Moore. The 5-foot-4 guard was a pest on defense and that would lead to lots of offense.

“We practice every day on our transition,” Moore said. “That was one of our main goals going into the game, transitioning off defense, letting our defense create our offense, and just getting those easy points.”

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Moore got the easy points and then some leading all scorers with 19 points. Nine of those points came from deep with the last three-pointer sending the home crowd into a frenzy. With Moore leading them, the Mustangs never let their foot off the gas pedal.

“She’s our spark off the bench and she only comes off the bench because we just need that fire off the bench,” Johnson said. “She did really well and I thought the girls all defensively picked it up and did they all had different roles in our win tonight.”

Scorers all around

By halftime, Delta College led the Bulldogs but they would show some signs of life to start the third quarter. They closed the gap to 10 points that quarter but luckily for the Mustangs, they have offensive weapons at just about every spot.

Almost every player who checked into the game for Delta College scored at least one bucket. Along with Moore, the Mustangs' other top scorers were sophomore Maya Chelini and freshman Serenity Santos. Chelini finished the game with 10 points while going 5-of-6 from the foul line. Santos finished with seven points and nine boards.

“The girls have improved a lot this season and they bought into the culture as a program,” Johnson said. “It's really about team and it's about playing for each other. I think the buying in is what really propelled us to be a better team.”

The Mustangs will look to continue its team-style basketball as they advance to the third round of the playoffs and will face either No. 7 College of the Sequoias or familiar foe No. 10 Santa Rosa. They will be at home no matter who wins on March 9.

“Even though we're ranked No. 2 going into this playoffs we still have a lot to prove,” Moore said. “We still have a lot of naysayers and doubters who don’t think we should be here. So we are just here to make a statement and keep making a run in the playoffs.”

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Record reporter Shannon Belt covers sports. She can be reached at sbelt@recordnet.com or on Twitter @ShannonBelt3. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: San Joaquin Delta College women basketball bests San Mateo in playoffs