The Fresno City College women’s basketball team cruised to an  81-51 victory at home against De Anza college in the first round of the 2013 Northern California Women’s Basketball Regionals.

Despite a slow start on offense, the Rams held a 20-16 lead with 10:15 left in the first half.

FCC head coach Brian Tessler called a timeout which immediately sparked the Rams.

Guard Jenae Alcantar connected on three 3-pointers while Dominique Pilkinton converted an acrobatic, up and under layup to push the Rams’ lead to 33-21 with four minutes left in the first half.

Rams’ point guard Madison Parrish closed out the first half with two more 3-pointers to push the lead to 41-23.

The second half started off similar to the first half with turnovers and missed opportunities. But Madison Parrish drained another 3-pointer to extend the lead to 46-27.

Another 10-3 run pushed the Rams lead to 50-32 and another 3-pointer from Kaylor Kovacevich and Alcantar pushed the lead to 56-38 with 11:08 left in the second half.

Jenae Alcantar drained her fourth 3-pointer with 7:40 left on the clock to expand the Rams lead to 70-41.

“Every time I shoot I act like I haven’t made any. You have to keep shooting and have a shooter’s mentality,” said Alcantar.

Tessler was proud of the women’s effort but still sees room for improvement heading into the second round of the playoffs. While he was happy with the tempo and the rebounding, he wants to see less turnovers and defensive breakdowns.

“I thought that we were pretty good but I didn’t think we were the way I need us to be going into the playoffs. There’s little things we need to do a better job of both offensively and defensively,” said Tessler. “I think we had too many turnovers and too many half court defensive breakdowns.”