Girls Top 20: The ‘Boss’ leads upstart Inderkum Tigers; Del Oro and Marysville pull upsets
There are nicknames and there is what everyone calls Jamiyah Fontenberry at Inderkum High School.
The 5-foot-10 junior guard goes by “Boss,” and who can argue with the numbers she has produced this basketball season? Fontenberry averages 15.7 points, 9.4 rebounds and 4.0 steals for The Bee-ranked No. 15 Tigers of the Natomas Unified School District.
Fontenberry and her first-year coach, Michele Massari, have been the driving force behind Inderkum’s 22-5 showing entering the week, making the Tigers a darkhorse threat in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I playoffs starting next week.
Fontenberry played for Massari her freshman season at Sacramento High, and their reunion has ignited new life for the Tigers.
“She’s been on a tear,” Massari said of Fonteberry. “She’s really stepped up her game. I feel that she’s one of the best players in the area, top five. She’s a double-double machine.”
Fontenberry recently eclipsed the 1,000-point career milestone for points scored with a year to go. The Tigers are 10-1 at home with a chance to secure a home playoff game.
Marysville moment
Three weeks after falling to No. 4 Colfax 54-41, No. 17 Marysville exacted a measure of revenge in the rematch.
The Indians delivered a 38-37 victory to thrust the Pioneer Valley League into a three-way race for the championship with this week left to cap the regular season. Marysville is 19-4 overall and 10-1 in the PVL. Colfax is 23-2 overall and 10-1 in the PVL. Bear River is 19-5 overall and 9-2 in league.
All three teams will advance to the playoffs.
Krystal Briggs and Abigail Pietz each scored 14 points for Marsyville against Colfax for coach Marvin Prince. The winning streak is 10 as the Indians have not lost since the first Colfax contest.
The Indians are big and balanced. They are led in scoring by 5-10 junior guard Demi Boykin (18.6 ppg), followed by sophomore guard Pietz (12.0 ppg) and 6-1 forward Briggs (11.1 ppg). The 5-8 Kaliyah Henry (6.1 ppg), 6-2 Maya McNeal (4.1 ppg) and 5-11 Taliyah Edwards (4.0 ppg) also play key roles.
Marysville finishes the week with a home game against Bear River.
Del Oro upsets Whitney
No. 12 Del Oro stunned No. 4 Whitney 45-43 on Friday in Sierra Foothill League play as senior guard Sidney Somer made two late free throws on Senior Night to win it. Fellow senior Shaelyn Parry was again steady, as was junior point guard and floor leader Ysabella Von Seipler for the playoff-bound Golden Eagles.
But the game took a turn when Whitney star Harper Peterson was ejected in the third quarter.
One of the referees overheard the Stanford-bound Harper question a call, not to him but to a teammate. That was her second technical foul of the game, leading to an automatic ejection. The referee on Saturday rescinded the second technical foul, thus allowing Peterson to play Saturday night in a nonleague game against St. Francis, which Whitney won 45-36, heading into the final week of the regular season.
Ejections in California otherwise mean a player must sit out the following game. Peterson had 13 points and 12 rebounds against St. Francis and Tylie Kitchen had 12 and nine.
Rio Linda tops Pioneer
Rio Linda lost to Pioneer of Woodland by two in overtime on Jan. 8, and the Knights have not tasted defeat since.
The winning streak is now eight, none of those efforts more satisfying than the 45-40 rematch triumph over Pioneer on Jan. 29 to make the Golden Empire League race a two-team sprint to the finish. That halted Pioneer’s 19-game winning streak.
Guard LaRay Mitchell scored 16 points, shooting guard Mariah Walton had 11 and center Savannah Grant eight for the surging Knights. Mitchell and Walton are sophomores and Grant is a freshman, so this show isn’t about to slow down any time soon.
Grant had 11 rebounds, Mitchell eight and Kyrri Mitchell, another sophomore, had nine for Rio Linda, which is 21-5 overall and 9-1 in the GEL, tied for first with Pioneer, which is 23-3 overall. Walton scores 10.7 points per game to lead the Knights, followed by Mitchell’s 10.2, Myunique Hill’s 8.5, Grant’s 7.1, Mitchell’s 6.2 and Toni Gutierrez-Cathey’s 5.5
Grant averages 9.7 rebounds for longtime coach Jerry Huffhines.
Foster Fuel
Christian Brothers last week welcomed back one of its anchors in Kaia Foster.
The senior guard went down in the playoffs last season with a knee ligament injury and has worked tirelessly to return to form. The daughter of Falcons head coach Shandyn Foster and kid sister to assistant coach Nick Hicks, Foster returned for a Capital Athletic League game against Vista del Lago. Kaia Foster won the battle to return, but Vista won the game, 62-50, to tie up the league race heading down the final stretch.
Foster’s return adds another scorer and playmaker for the Falcons. The leading scorers are senior guard Aleyah Harmon (17.1 ppg), freshman wing Olivia Novi (14.7 ppg) and sophomore forward Joy Omishakin (11.1 ppg).
Foster scored three points, a 3-pointer, which was encouraging, but the playmaker of the night was Vista del Lago’s Ella Skrzniarz, one of the area’s star talents. The junior had a spectacular night, scoring 39 points on 14 of 21 shooting, including five 3-pointers. She had 11 rebounds and three assists and is averaging 21.7 points and 8.0 rebounds.
Section basketball bracket release
The Bee’s Joe Davidson will join section assistant commissioner Will DeBoard in the section office on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. for the annual basketball bracket release show. Each of the seven girls and boys divisions will be released and analyzed.
It will be aired, without cost, on the NFHS Network through ABC JAM Productions.
THE BEE’S TOP 20
Girls
Records entering Tuesday
1. Folsom (20-4)
2. McClatchy (19-5)
3. Oak Ridge (21-5)
4. Whitney (18-8)
5. Colfax (22-2)
6. Antelope (17-7)
7. Vista del Lago (15-8)
8. Christian Brothers (20-6)
9. Grant (19-6)
10. Monterey Trail (14-9)
11. West Campus (18-6)
12. Del Oro (14-11)
13. Lincoln (21-3)
14. Kennedy (15-7)
15. Inderkum (22-5)
16. Liberty Ranch (22-5)
17. Marysville (19-4)
18. Woodcreek (14-12)
19. Rio Linda (21-5)
20. Pioneer (23-3)
Bubble: Bear River (19-5), Davis (15-10), Faith Christian (20-4), Franklin (17-10), Ponderosa (19-7), Rocklin (13-12), St. Francis (11-13), Valley Christian (16-5), Woodland Christian (21-4).
This story was originally published February 5, 2024 at 11:59 AM.