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Valley Christian High freshman Ariel Martinez attempts one of her seven shots taken in the second half as she shoots over a pair of Silver Valley High defenders. V.C. lost last Thursday’s CIF-Southern Section Division 6 first round game 54-51. PHOTO BY STEVE FERICEAN.
By Loren Kopff
Sports Editor | Follow X
February 15, 2025
Valley Christian High head coach Dan Leffler saw a lot of film on Silver Valley High but admits it doesn’t do justice as opposed to scouting an opponent in person. But when the Defenders, seeded second in the CIF-Southern Section Division 6 playoffs, saw Naomi Durrah in person, all the scouting still couldn’t prevent the inevitable.
Durrah scored 27 of the 31 points the Trojans scored in the second half and V.C.’s rally in the final three minutes of the game came up short in a 54-51 loss last Thursday in a first round game. The Defenders were trailing the Trojans, who hail from Yermo, just outside of Barstow, by 14 points with 3:19 left in the game, but junior Hannah Burgoyne and freshman Ariel Martinez each hit a pair of three-pointers to cut the deficit to two points with 1:15 left to play after Burgoyne’s trifecta from the top of the key.
“I think I’ve seen us dig deep a lot of times, so they’re pretty familiar with it, and they don’t panic,” said V.C. head coach Dan Leffler. “They felt like, hey, we could do this. I thought we had a decent plan going down the stretch defensively, and we started to try to make somebody else catch the ball rather than Durrah because if she got it, then we were in trouble. But to their credit, the girl had a great game.”
A pair of free throws from Durrah, who came into the game averaging nearly 33 points a game, made it a 53-49 game with 75 seconds left. Then sophomore Molly Douglas took a pass from Burgoyne and made it a one-possession contest with 18.8 seconds remaining. Leffler immediately called a timeout and on Silver Valley’s ensuing possession, the Trojans turned the ball over with Burgoyne getting the steal. She quickly tossed the ball down the court to Douglas, who missed a potential game-tying basket with 3.8 seconds left. Durrah would add an insurance free throw with 2.2 ticks left for the final point.
“It just wasn’t meant to be for us to win this game because obviously when it’s 53-51 and we steal the ball, and we get [Douglas] under the basket and we can’t make a layup to tie the game, not to win the game, I thought it wasn’t meant to be,” said Leffler.
“That was a difficult, stressful moment,” said Silver Valley head coach Charles Crawford of V.C.’s late rally. “They started to press and we kind of just got away with what we know we needed to do. I always tell the girls that the pressure is not on us; it’s on the other team to beat us. I think a lot if it was the crowd got involved a lot and a couple of turnovers here and there, and they started to let it get away and let emotions get into it.”
Both teams traded baskets five straight times in the first quarter before Lyric White and Sydney Trotter scored back to back within 44 seconds to give the Trojans a 10-5 lead entering the second quarter. That lead would extend 13 points with 3:03 left in the half when Durrah went coast to coast after a rebound to make it 21-8.
But the Defenders began to do something they’re accustomed to doing all season-make a rally before halftime. It began with a three-pointer from Burgoyne with 2:50 remaining and ended with another downtown basket with 7.8 seconds left as V.C. was down 23-21 at the break.
“If you look back at us playing this season, the third quarter has always been a struggle for us,” said Leffler. “I thought any momentum we could get going into halftime, we could hopefully carry over and make a run. To Hannah’s credit, she’s trying to get everyone involved and I’m telling her to shoot more. I really felt like if I was ever going to turn her loose, I probably could have done a better job as her coach and [tell her] to just keep shooting.”
“So, we’re normally a second quarter team; we come out strong in the second quarter,” said Crawford. “So I knew that was going to happen as long as we play our type of basketball. Again, it was [V.C.’s] shooting ability; that’s what did it. They started setting up that high pick and roll and popping [Burgoyne and Martinez] out. Even though we were telling them they had to close out, they were trying to stay true to our defensive scheme.”
Burgoyne had 15 points in the half while the V.C. defense was holding Durrah at bay with eight points on three of 13 shooting. That would all change in a heartbeat in the third quarter as the Trojans went on a 10-3 run in the first 2:12 of the second half, with Durrah scoring all the points. The Defenders responded with a 7-4 run before Silver Valley, with an enrollment just over 400, got four points from Durrah to end the stanza, then baskets from Durrah and Serwaah Sarpong to begin the fourth quarter as the Trojans were up by 14 points.
Even with Martinez sinking a three-pointer and Burgoyne finishing a three-point play, the hosts were still down by 11 points with 4:45 left in the game. But even with the rallies at the end of the first half and the game, the story was on Durrah, who scored 36 points on 14 of 35 shooting from the field and missed one of seven free throws.
During the regular season, Durrah, who is a sophomore, exceeded the 30-point mark 13 times, including five games in which she scored over 40 points. In the regular season finale against, she posted 49 points in a 61-59 win over Twentynine Palms High.
“Obviously, I thought we did an okay job, but we didn’t do a great job on her,” said Leffler. “She had way too many points and we didn’t have an answer, and I think offensively, we were pretty out of sync in the first half, which put us a little bit behind where we wanted to be.
“We didn’t do what we had hoped to do, which was if we keep her under 30; under her average, we give ourselves a chance to win this game,” he later said. “We couldn’t do that, and that’s to her credit. She gave us all we could handle. I always want to give credit for that because I think that was a stellar performance by her. Even with her scoring that many points, we were still in this thing to the bitter end.”
To put things in perspective, Silver Valley entered the postseason averaging 20 points more than Durrah by herself. Aubrey White and Sarpong each added six points.
“She’s phenomenal,” said Crawford. “She came out last year, and it was my first year coaching for the girls; I coached the boys basketball team, and I knew what [the girls team] was going to have. I wanted to be a part of that because there was going to be something special.”
Burgoyne led the Defenders with 27 points and pulled down six rebounds while Martinez added 14 points. Douglas and sophomore Jaiya Lee had 10 and eight rebounds, respectively and Douglas added four steals.
“The biggest [problem] was [Burgoyne]; phenomenal shooter,” said Crawford. “The plan was to try to get her out of her groove. We did it for a little bit, and then she got hot. We had to call a timeout and definitely had to slow everything down after that.”
Even though V.C., which began the season winning 12 of its first 15 games, graduates four players on a team of 11, the progression of the program is moving in the right direction. This was the program’s first trip to the playoffs since the 2021-2022 season, and the 16-9 mark is the best since the 2016-2017 squad went 22-10 and advanced to the Division 4AA finals. Martinez was the lone freshman but there were five sophomores, and Burgoyne was the only junior.
“I think Ariel has grown just a ton and played now in enough varsity basketball games to feel like, hey, I know what we’re doing, and I know what the speed is,” said Leffler. “But I’m super proud of her. In the second half of our season, she was like, hey, I got the tools. It’s kind of a one-two combo with her and Hannah. So, I’m super excited about the future for them and the program.”
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