For the third time in this year’s girls’ basketball season, a sophomore has crossed the 1,000-career-point mark as Valencia’s Kamilla Basyrova led the Vikings to a 58-39 win over Saugus on Friday.
“It feels great. Thank you to my teammates, they’re the ones who pass me the ball, and thank you to my coaches,” Basyrova said in response to how it feels achieving the milestone. “I was just excited and very grateful.”
Basyrova is the third sophomore to achieve the milestone and fifth player in both boys’ and girls’ basketball to do so in the Santa Clarita Valley.
She joins Trinity’s Noa Peña and Canyon’s Darby Dunn to do so as sophomores while Trinity’s Noah Phillips and Canyon’s Isaac Yuhico crossed the mark as seniors earlier in this year’s boys’ basketball season.
In the win over Saugus (17-8, 7-2), Basyrova was second on the team in scoring with 17 points. And although it’s under her 19.6 points per game average, according to MaxPreps, Valencia (20-4, 8-0) head coach Jared Honig believes Basyrova did all the right things to help her team win.
“It’s an amazing accomplishment for sure,” he said. “She got it pretty early in the game as well. So, I’m just really proud of her. She puts in a ton of work, so it makes sense that she’sable to achieve that as a sophomore.”
With the win, the Vikings achieved the season series sweep over the Centurions after the team defeated Saugus earlier in the year.
But going into the matchup, Honig knew the matchup was going to be tough and tasked his team with preparing for a motivated Centurions side.
“We knew they were going to come out and do kind of whatever it took to try to win the game, kind of like us last year when we played Hart the second time,” Honig said. “So, we were trying to be ready for everything that they could throw at us, and I thought we did a good enough job to secure the win.”
Freshman Sophia Sarkar led the Vikings in scoring with 18 points, with four timely threes in the second half.
Honig spoke after the game that Sarkar’s performance is a testament to the freshman’s work ethic and already has the composure to hit the “big shots.”
“She’s just always ready to play,” he said. “She’s a really big competitor and in the first half, didn’t even take too many shots. But in the second half, and it seemed like [Saugus] were maybe playing all for her a little bit, and we found her several times, and she was ready and she had the big shots.”
With the win, the Vikings improved to 8-0 in Foothill League play and hold a two-game advantage over second-place Saugus.
Although the Foothill League race isn’t over just yet, Honig is going to continue to have the team ready and give full effort for a strong end to the year.
“No matter who we play, we’re playing to our standards. We have a lot of standards and goals that we look at each game that’s really just about us,” he said. “And then we want to finish off league strong heading into the playoffs hitting our rhythm.”
The Vikings play again Tuesday at home against the Castaic Coyotes.
The Centurions fell to 6-2 in Foothill League play but remain multiple games ahead of third-place Canyon.
The Centurions play again Tuesday at Saugus High School against the West Ranch Wildcats.
Both games tip off at 5 p.m.
After Friday night’s games, here are scores from around the Foothill League:
Canyon 63, West Ranch 40: The Cowboys (14-11, 6-3) improved to 6-3 in Foothill League play with a win on the road over the Wildcats (18-6, 4-5).
Dunn led all Canyon players in scoring with 25 points on 8-for-24 shooting while also recording 11 rebounds and four assists.
The Cowboys play again on Friday at home against the Golden Valley Grizzlies.
As for West Ranch, the Wildcats will look to bounce back against the Centurions at Saugus High School with tip-off scheduled for 5 p.m.
Golden Valley 63, Castaic 23: The Grizzlies (12-11, 2-6) secured their second Foothill League win of the season with a victory over the Castaic Coyotes (5-15, 0-9).
The Grizzlies will look to continue their winning ways Tuesday at home against the Hart Hawks while the Coyotes match up against the Valencia Vikings.
Both games are scheduled for 5 p.m.
Photos below from Valencia’s win over Saugus:
