Williams leads La Cañada girls’ basketball to outright crown
LA CAÑADA — Even on an evening when a share of the Rio Hondo League title was up for grabs, the spotlight couldn’t help but gravitate toward La Cañada High girls’ basketball player Zoe Williams.
The 6-foot-1 senior center turned in a titanic effort Thursday evening as she totaled 19 points, 29 rebounds and three blocks in the Spartans’ 54-41 victory over South Pasadena on senior night in the regular season finale.
With the win, the CIF Southern Section Division I-AA No. 9-ranked Spartans claimed their 23rd straight league victory and a second consecutive outright crown as they finished with a 22-5 record and a 10-0 mark in league.
“It definitely wasn’t easy tonight and it definitely wasn’t easy the first time we played South Pasadena,” La Cañada Coach Sarah Beattie said. “South Pas just comes after you game after game and for us as a team, the goal is to win league, which means we have to beat South Pasadena.”
Every time the Tigers (14-9, 8-2) fell behind by a significant margin, the squad would rally behind its three-point shooting. Every time the Spartans looked to fend off South Pasadena, they went inside to Williams.
La Cañada led, 39-28, with 6:38 remaining in the contest after a pair of free throws from Brooke Yasuda (10 points).
South Pasadena countered with a 6-0 spurt that culminated on a three-pointer from senior guard Juliana Tom, who scored a game-high 20 points, to knife its deficit to 39-34 with 5:07 remaining.
The five-point lead had been the smallest for the Spartans since early in the third quarter and La Cañada responded with a double dose of Williams.
First, the senior hit a six-foot leaner off an assist from Kristina Kurdoghlian (six points and nine rebounds) that was followed up by an inside bucket created on a pass from Alexi Nazarian that put the Spartans ahead, 43-34, with 4:16 left.
On the Spartans’ next trip down, the scoreboard malfunctioned for the second time in the contest, which led to a five-minute break.
The extra pause gave a little life to the Tigers, who closed the gap to 45-38 with 1:57 left.
South Pasadena then fouled Williams 13 seconds later and the senior drained one of two free throws to put her team ahead by nine.
La Cañada never trailed by less than nine the rest of the contest as South Pasadena was forced to foul and the Spartans eventually pushed their lead into double digits.
“It feels really good to win this championship because we worked hard from the preseason to all season to accomplish this,” Williams said. “We have a lot of goals to accomplish and this is just one of them.”
South Pasadena raced to a 5-1 lead in the opening minutes capped on a three-pointer from Tom off a steal and assist from Jade Lin.
La Cañada bounced back with a 9-5 spurt to lead, 10-6, after one quarter.
The Spartans eventually led, 16-8, on a point-blank bucket from Williams and took a 20-13 advantage at the break.
South Pasadena forced 15 turnovers, while committing only six and showed its talent for takeaways by forcing two straight turnovers to start the third quarter.
Both those gaffes turned into two-point field goals from Flannery Clark and Tom as the Tigers closed to within 20-17 at the 7:05 mark in the third.
An offensive putback from Williams and five points from Yasuda put the Spartans ahead, 28-17, with 5:30 left in the third.
La Cañada settled for a 34-25 lead after three quarters.
“We knew it was going to be a heated game today because of the last time we played them,” said Nazarian, who finished with eight points and six rebounds. “They wanted it bad, so we had to bring everything we had to win.”
