Deer Valley’s girls basketball team is playing its best basketball at the end of the season. Friday night’s 78-40 victory over Antioch was the Wolverines’ 11th league win in a row, allowing them to wrap up the BVAL championship once again.

Wolverine star Raven Fox led all scorers with 26 points – 19 of them in the opening half – to lead a balanced attack that included 10 players putting points on the board. Darnella Jenkins was Deer Valley’s second leading scorer with 10 points. Antioch’s Tatjana Pitts established herself in the paint early and often, scoring 25 points. But Antioch did not spread the scoring out: Joette Capilli was the Panthers’ second leading scorer with seven points and no other Antioch player notched more than two.

Deer Valley closed the first quarter with a 9-0 run to open up a 20-11 lead and steadily built on it throughout the contest, including a 23-7 second quarter that effectively put the game out of reach at halftime. The third quarter was the only quarter in which Deer Valley failed to score 20 or more points.

Wolverine Coach Lindsay Wisely was pleased with the victory. “I think the bench play was a big difference for us,” she said. “Our bench really stepped up; they came out with a lot of energy.” The starting five of Fox, Nyaa Davis, Mia Roseboro, Imana Samuels and Kayla Alexander scored 40 points while the bench scored the remaining 38 points, including all but two of Deer Valley’s 22 fourth quarter points.

“I think that one thing that was really good was our offensive execution,” Wisely added. “We came out sharp offensively and I think that the score showed that.”

When asked about how she feels about her team’s chances in the upcoming NCS playoffs, Wisely said, “I feel really good. I think that we’re in playoff mode right now. We seem like we’re ready to go. I think that the key for us is going to be defense and getting defensive stops. We feel really confident. Our defense has been really strong as of late. I think that we’ve been improving throughout league, so that’s good.”

On Tuesday, Antioch traveled to Freedom while Deer Valley hosted Pittsburg. On Thursday, Antioch closed out its regular season, hosting Heritage. The results of those games were not available at press time. Tonight, Feb. 19, Deer Valley finishes season play at Freedom.