Wolf Pack girls prevail despite McCall Injury

Ridgeview's Erica McCall was pretty close to unstoppable Saturday night, here driving against Murrieta Valley in the second half of the stateplayoff game at Ridgeview.

ZACH EWING, bakersfieldcalifornian.com, March 9, 2013

Erica McCall had a dandy of a statistical line to help Ridgeview High beat Murrieta Valley 58-40 on Saturday in the state girls basketball playoffs.The numbers: 37 points, 16 rebounds, six blocks -- and one gigantic scare for all those in attendance at Ridgeview.McCall left the game late in the second quarter with a left knee injury and didn't return until after halftime. She had her knee wrapped and re-joined the game a couple of minutes into the third quarter to loud applause.

McCall, a senior who's signed with Stanford, said later she strained the knee when it was caught underneath her and a Murrieta Valley player as they fell to the floor.

"It's all good," she said. "I was a little nervous because it was sore when I started playing, but it felt better as I went on."
That's good news for top-seeded Ridgeview (28-3), which plays at 7 p.m. Tuesday at home against No. 4 Riverside-J.W. North in the CIF Division II Southern California semifinals. The winner there heads to the regional championship Saturday in Ontario, where a win means a berth in the state title game March 23 in Sacramento.

"I'm just glad we're representing Bakersfield in a big way," McCall said. "We're making history, game by game.”

In this one, Ridgeview built a 30-13 lead before McCall left the game. The Wolf Pack was never in real danger of losing the lead, but Murrieta Valley (27-6) had cut it to 31-19 when McCall returned.

“There’s really no Plan B at this time of year, but we were hoping to pick up the pressure on (defense) and make them play fullcourt,” Ridgeview coach Michael Martin said.

Martin was much happier when he could return to Plan A. McCall proved she was fine midway through the third quarter with a block, rebound and coast-to-coast layup, followed by a tough offensive rebound and short jumper. She even drew a hard foul and crashed into the padding behind the basket, only to pop up and motion to the crowd that she was feeling fine.

“There was just a lot of energy in here tonight,” McCall said. “Last game, I didn’t feel that energy, but it was in here tonight.

Scoring on second chance points, fourteen of those came from you-know-who.

“I haven’t been shooting well, so I knew I had to go back to my bread and butter,” McCall said. “I had to go back inside.”

Murrieta Valley tried a variety of zone defenses and double-teams to stymie McCall, but they had no answer for her prowess in the paint.

“She’s a real good player,” Murrieta Valley coach Scott Richards Jr. said. “We had a gameplan against her, but we didn’t come out solid. We tried to sandwich her with our zone, which we did pretty well, but then it was hard to box her out. Then we switched to an elongated zone and pressed more, but she just has a nose for the ball. She hurt us.

But when McCall left the game for good with two minutes remaining, she had outscored the entire Nighthawks team, 37-36.

McCall scored eight points in a 12-0 Ridgeview run that put the Wolf Pack up 26-9 in the second quarter. Murrieta Valley’s only real run after that point came when she was out of the game.

“Erica was an animal tonight,” Martin said. “She’s a special player in big times. People might have forgot because we take her out when we’re way ahead, but this is time to put the foot to the gas pedal. It’s time to push it all the way now.”