Girls’ Basketball: Eagles own Mesa

At halftime, the PA announcer informed the crowd at Estancia High what Costa Mesa had to do in order to claim the Battle for the Bell rivalry.

He announced that the Mustangs needed to win the girls’ basketball game by 21 points on Thursday. They couldn’t even score 21 points at Estancia.

The Eagles defended their city title with a 38-17 win, easily sweeping the two-game series with Costa Mesa. They rang the Bell trophy afterward at midcourt, keeping it for the fourth straight season.

The prize the Eagles really want is the Orange Coast League crown. The Eagles are now a win away from repeating as league champions.

Estancia improved to 8-0 in league and it can wrap up its fourth straight league championship with a victory at home against Laguna Beach on Monday at 6 p.m. The Breakers are 7-1 in league, one game back of the Eagles.

“Monday’s game here against Laguna is a big one,” said Estancia Coach Judd Fryslie, who was glad to see his Eagles get through the Mustangs for a fifth consecutive time. “[The game] was very ragged, but then I’ve seen ragged Costa Mesa-Estancia games before. Yes, [those games are scary]. You don’t know who is going to foul. You don’t know who is going to get hurt. You can’t run anything. It’s just chaos.”

The first couple of minutes of the second meeting between Estancia and Costa Mesa turned out to be a mess. The Mustangs missed their first four shots, the Eagles their first eight.

Then Costa Mesa guard Katie Lawrence hit a three-pointer with 5:53 left in the opening quarter. The only other successful field goal in the quarter was a putback by Estancia’s Finley Garnett at the 3:49 mark.

Without Garnett, the Eagles (18-6 overall), ranked No. 13 in the CIF Southern Section Division 4AA poll, looked out of sync offensively. She sparked Estancia, scoring half of the team’s 22 first-half points.

Garnett, who usually starts, began the evening on the bench because the Eagles started five seniors on the night they honored their seniors. Garnett is only a sophomore, but she produced like an experienced player.

Garnett finished with 22 points, 11 rebounds, four steals and a block. The guard accounted for eight of Estancia’s 12 field goals. The only other Eagles to make a shot were Estefania Flores, who had two three-pointers, and Maya Van Den Heever, who had two baskets in the paint.

The Eagles didn’t need to score that much to extend their winning streak in league to 27 games. Costa Mesa kept turning the ball over, totaling 21 for the game to drop to 0-8 in league.

“We struggled for sure,” said Costa Mesa Coach Lauren Coleman, whose team went seven of 55 from the field, two of 12 from three-point range and one of seven from the free-throw line. “But in all honestly, I’m not mad at them. We held a great team to 38 points. You can’t really be mad at that. We lost, yeah, but again, they only scored 38 points.”

Estancia, which went into the evening averaging 52 points per game and having defeated Costa Mesa, 55-35, on Jan. 14, could’ve beat Costa Mesa with Garnett’s production. She shot 44% from the field and converted six of seven from the charity stripe.

The rest of the Eagles combined for 16 points, Van Den Heever contributed seven, Flores six, and Nefertiti Van Den Heever, Delani Guyot and Jocelyn Alanis added one apiece. Costa Mesa’s leading scorer was Lawrence, who had seven points, while freshman Katie Belmontes grabbed 15 rebounds.

Lawrence had five of the Mustangs’ six points at the break, and they trailed by 16. A dozen turnovers in the first half doomed Costa Mesa, which has experienced a lot of losing during Coleman’s first season at the helm.

Coleman, a former Florida State women’s basketball player, isn’t used to all the losing. The Mustangs, who are 4-20 overall, have lost 12 in a row, two of those coming against Estancia, which owns the Battle for the Bell rivalry.

“I mean, I come from Florida State, so Florida State and Florida is a bigger rivalry than this,” Coleman said. “I love the fact that they have this in high school, though. This is great for the kids. I absolutely love it.

“We’ll be coming for them next year.”

—

Orange Coast League

Estancia 38, Costa Mesa 17

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Costa Mesa 3 – 3 – 5 – 6 — 17

Estancia 7 – 15 – 8 – 8 — 38

CM – Lawrence 7, Aguirre 3, Belmontes 2, T. Crenshaw 2, Cabrera 2, Gomez 1.

3-pt. goals – Lawrence 1, Aguirre 1.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – None.

E – Garnett 22, M. Van Den Heever 7, Flores 6, N. Van Den Heever 1, Guyot 1, Alanis 1.

3-pt. goals – Flores 2.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – None.