Los Altos Surprises Brea-Olinda

Susan Peters scored 9 of her 18 points in the fourth quarter to lead Los Altos High School to a 52-45 upset girls’ basketball victory over top-seeded Brea-Olinda in a Southern Section 3-A quarterfinal game Saturday at Brea.

Peters, a 5-foot 11-inch forward, scored seven of her points in the last 2:08 as Los Altos (19-3) outscored the Wildcats (27-2) by 9-4 during the span to pull out the victory.

“We wanted to stay as close as we could to them for as long as we could,” Los Altos Coach Don Holbrook said. “If we could do it through three quarters, we figured that anything can happen in the final period. And our kids followed that game plan to a T.”

Los Altos, which will play the Capistrano Valley in Tuesday’s semifinals, stayed close to Brea-Olinda throughout the first half. The Wildcats took a 10-9 lead after the first quarter, but Los Altos came back to tie the score, 25-25, at halftime.

Brea-Olinda scored the first five points of the third quarter to take its biggest lead, 30-25, but Los Altos refused to fade. Staci Louie made two consecutive three-point shots to keep the Conquerers within four points at the end of the quarter.

“I thought Louie’s shots were a key for us,” Holbrook said. “They had a chance to blow us out early in the third quarter, but when Louie made those three-pointers, that really gave us the spark we needed.”

Louie finished the game with 14 points, and teammate Susan Sussoev scored 11. Susan Tousey had 14 points, and Tammy Blackburn added 13 for Brea-Olinda.