Coast Union girls to host Calvary Murrieta in opening CIF playoff game

The Calvary Murrieta Warrior team from Murrieta is Coast Union’s opponent in the first round of the CIF Division 5A girls basketball playoffs, set for 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 18, at Coast Union. The Lady Broncos qualified as a playoff team by virtue of its 9-2 record, good for second place finish in the Coast Valley League.

The home team will appear to have an even bigger advantage, given the fatigue factor, because the Warriors will be making a five-hour drive from deep in Riverside County, 312 miles away.

The Warriors placed fourth in the South Valley League with a 4-6 record, finishing 10-10 overall. Calvary Murrieta is a private Christian school with 859 students (Coast Union’s enrollment is 230).

For many of the Warriors — including the two top scorers, Julia Lombardi and Kassi Schifflett — Thursday night will provide a sense of déjà vu because they drove to Cambria to play the Coast volleyball team on Dec. 12. The Lady Broncos knocked Calvary Murrieta out of the CIF playoffs in three games, 25-12, 25-21 and 25-23.

Lombardi, a senior, led the Warriors basketball team this season with 155 points, 178 rebounds, 68 steals and 64 assists. Shifflet, a junior, scored 135 points, grabbed 94 rebounds and hit on 6 of 29 three-pointers. The Coast Union coaching staff does not publish individual stats.

Senior guard and playmaker Reagan Kniffen, who also plays volleyball for Coast Union, has gone up against the Warriors volleyball team twice in the past two years, but this will be her first clash with their basketball team.

In a Monday interview this week, Kniffen was asked how the Lady Broncos managed to get a home CIF Division 5 playoff game when they placed second in the CVL?

“I don’t know how we got so lucky to get a home game on Thursday,” she said. “We were expecting to be on the road Tuesday so we got really lucky.”

What does Coast Union need to do to be competitive against the Warriors?

“We’re working a lot on our shooting,” Kniffen explained. “Coach Bobby (Youngs) keeps preaching to us that in girls basketball it’s shooting, shooting, shooting. We’re going to be taking a lot of shots, because in the last few games we’ve been really tentative in our shooting.

“We’ve been timid when it comes to shooting, so we’re working on that. We worry sometimes that we’ll mess up if we miss,” but she added, if you don’t take the shot, “you won’t know if it is good or not.”

This story was originally published February 17, 2016 at 10:33 AM with the headline "Coast Union girls to host Calvary Murrieta in opening CIF playoff game."