Falcons Hold Off Cambronero, Woodinville Advances to Second Round of KingCo playoffs

 The Woodinville Falcons fought off a valiant effort from Chanel Cambronero and Newport to advance to the second round of the KingCo 4A tournament with a 60-51 win, Wednesday night.

Cambronero, a senior point guard, scored a game-high 28 points, carrying Newport on her back virtually the entire game.

"We knew she was going to be great," Woodinville girls basketball coach Scott Bullock said of Cambronero. "We focused our defense on her and wanted to hold her to 20 but she went off for 28. We dogged her all night. You just got to give her a ton of credit."

Dealing with Cambronero's game wasn't the only problem for the Falcons. Their leading scorer Melissa Gilkey had just two points in the first half after picking up two early fouls in the first quarter.

With Gilkey on the bench and Ali Forde only playing sparingly to rest her sore knee, the Falcons turned to one of the younger players on their roster for a much-needed spark.

After Gilkey exited with 2:46 left in the first quarter, Woodinville held a 12-8 lead. Cambronero, though, led Newport back with seven points to open the second quarter and put the Knights ahead 17-14. But just as Newport looked to be taking control of the game, Falcons' sophomore Amanda Skalabrin stepped up and scored eight consecutive points to put her team back in front at 22-21.

"Amanda's just a sophomore and we're looking forward to her being a great player," Bullock said. "Being behind Melissa (Gilkey) and Ali (Forde) she doesn't play a lot of minutes but tonight she stepped up when we needed her."

With Skalabrin leading the way, the Falcons took a 27-23 lead into the break. As the third quarter opened, Woodinville reeled off a 7-0 run that left Newport in a double-digit hole. Through the rest of the quarter, the Falcons would continue to put distance between them and their opponent despite the best efforts of Cambronero.

Finally with five minutes to play Newport, trailing 50-34, began to make a run. Again with Cambronero leading the way, the Knights ripped off 12 quick points over the next three minutes to cut the lead to four.

But Deidre Miller, who had 11 points in the game, drilled a 3-pointer with 1:40 left to put a halt to the Falcons slide and from there the team iced the game from the free-throw line.

Gilkey finished with 18 points -- 16 in the second half -- to lead the Falcons while Skalabrin added 12.

Woodinville advances to the second round of the KingCo 4A tournament which will continue from Juanita High School on Saturday.