Top-Ranked Poway Tips Mt. Carmel

Top-ranked Poway High School took advantage of eight second-quarter turnovers and held off third-ranked Mt. Carmel in the second half to score a 49-46 Palomar League girls’ basketball victory Tuesday.

The Titans (19-1, 11-0) won their 16th consecutive game and have beaten the Sundevils (14-2, 9-2) in their last two meetings. Mt. Carmel is the only team that has beaten Poway this season.

Mt. Carmel, which trailed by 16 midway through the third quarter, pulled to within two points with 12 seconds left on Vicki de Jesus’s three-point play. De Jesus had eight points, seven under her average, and scored fewer than 10 for only the eighth time in her four-year varsity career.

The Titans, experimenting with a new half-court trap defense in the second quarter, scored 10 points off nine Mt. Carmel turnovers and took a 22-16 halftime lead. It was 8-8 through one period.

Poway’s Stephanie Guerena scored eight of her 16 points in the third quarter as Poway stretched the lead to 16, 38-22, with 3:05 left in the period.