Modesto Christian’s White, Sierra’s Patton lead all-star teams to victory, take MVP honors

Early on in the girls game of the 20^th annual 6-County Senior All-Star Basketball Game, Modesto Christian’s Candice White had the ball stolen from her by Patterson’s Povai Fesili.

It was at that point that White reset to her default mode: competitor.

“For me, my expectations are so high,” said White, who helped the Blue All-Stars to an 82-66 win over the Red team. “When I turned the ball over I was like, ‘How can you turn it over? You work every day on your handles.’

“I think my competitiveness just took over.”

White, who was The Bee’s Player of the Year this season, scored 13 points, set picks, made several nice passes to set up teammates, and played something a little more stout than typical, all-star defense. She earned game MVP honors in the process and also won the three-point shooting contest at halftime, beating MC teammate Samantha Johnson in the final.

The 6-County All-Star Game, which features the top graduating players from Stanislaus, Merced, San Joaquin, Tuolumne, Calaveras and Mariposa counties, is always entertaining and rarely competitive. Still, the all-stars play like they have something to prove.

“You really want to show everybody the reason you’re here,” said Patterson sharpshooter Shealyn Craven, who couldn’t hit anything early on but smiled broadly when she finally connected from three-point territory. She eventually heated up, hitting four treys and finishing with 12 points. “You’re playing against the best of the best, so you want to prove you belong.”

The boys contest was more closely contested, with coaches actually making strategic substitutions and calling timeouts in the game’s final three minutes, with the Red team pulling out a 95-88 victory.

Modesto Christian’s Jeff Wu hit a pair of three-pointers in the final minute to make it close, but game MVP and slam-dunk contest champ Joshua Patton of Sierra hit a shot in the waning seconds for the final margin.

“When it starts getting close to the end of the game it starts to get more competitive,” said the 6-foot-8 Patton, who will attend Sacramento State next year. “We were trying to win, that was our goal, so we knew we needed to play defense.”

In the girls game, Weston Ranch’s Elisabeth Alexander, the MVP of the Valley Oak League, led all scorers with 20 points, hitting six three-pointers along the way.

Sonora’s Bailey Henington, the Mother Lode League’s MVP, finished with 12 points for the Blues, two coming on a driving, reverse layup through the lane. Ariyana Cashen, sitting on the opposite bench from Patterson teammates Fesili and Craven, chipped in with 10 points.

Fesili, the Western Athletic Conference’s MVP, finished with 17 points, while Johnson added 12 for the Red squad.

Between the first and second quarters of the boys game, former Modesto Bee sports writer Brian VanderBeek was honored by game organizer Bobby Cole. VanderBeek left The Bee last week after 19 years covering local sports, including a good many of the previous 19 editions of the 6-County game.

This story was originally published May 1, 2015 at 11:10 PM with the headline "Modesto Christian’s White, Sierra’s Patton lead all-star teams to victory, take MVP honors."