Third time does it. Palo Verde ends Calipatria’s season

Palo Verde Valley advances to CIF Division V title game with 48-35 win on Tuesday night

BLYTHE, Calif. ( KYMA, KECY-TV ) - Both Palo Verde Valley and Calipatria's girls basketball teams ripped through the first two rounds of the CIF Division V playoffs. It set the stage for a fourth meeting between the Imperial Valley League foes. This time in the postseason for the right to advance to the Division title game.

"We finally have our full team here and the last time we played the score was a lot closer than the final score showed," Calipatria head coach Mike Fong said.

In the three previous meetings, the home team won each time. Calipatria looked to change that on Tuesday night in front of a packed and electric gymnasium.

It was the Yellow Jackets of Palo Verde who scored first on a long jumper by Maryjane Bagnino and from there, Palo Verde would never trail. Palo Verde led 16-6 after the first quarter, increased the lead to 18 in the second en route to a 48-35 win.

"We got in foul trouble early and we knew they were going to come at us," Palo Verde head coach Irma Gonzalez said. "We stepped it up a little bit, put more pressure on the ball, contested some shots and just played our game."

Palo Verde will next play Sweetwater in the Division V final on Thursday.

"We've worked hard all season long," Gonzalez said. "We got here by practice, our girls listening, our assistant coaches are phenomenal and our girls bought into what they had to do and we're just going to keep practicing and doing our thing."