Chino Ends Point Loma’s Home Winning Streak at 143 Games

There is nothing discrete about the state championship banners that hang in the high school gym at Point Loma High. The four gold-and-maroon flags represent, in part, the accomplishments of the Pointer girls’ basketball teams, which until Saturday afternoon had won 143 consecutive games there.

But Chino (12-0), the defending Southern Section 2-A champion from the Baseline League in Pomona Valley, wasn’t intimidated by the banners, the streak or the gym and said so in a resounding 50-39 victory for the championship of the Ben Fisher tournament.

“They have those four banners hanging here,” Chino Coach Joe Murillo said. “We wanted to see what it would be like to come down here and play a ranked team.”

They found out. Using a zone defense to negate Point Loma’s speed, Chino was able to curtail the scoring of Monica Filer and Tyeast Brown, who were held to 6 and 11 points, respectively. Sophomore Chris Drumm led the Pointers with 15, including a fourth-quarter 3-pointer.

“We just couldn’t match up with them,” Point Loma Coach Lee Trepanier said. “Big people wear you down, and they did a good job of it.”

Point Loma’s tallest player is Brown at 5-feet 11-inches. Chino has four players who are taller than 6 feet.

“We’re tall,” Murillo said. “Sometimes the kids don’t realize we can take advantage of that. In the third quarter, we started taking advantage of our size.”

The third quarter proved to be Point Loma’s undoing. The Pointers had leads of 14-12 after a quarter and 22-21 at halftime, but Chino came out and outscored Point Loma, 14-6, in the third quarter.

Point Loma was also hurt by its free-throw shooting. The Pointers were just 4 of 10 from the line.

With the loss, Point Loma must start another winning streak from scratch.

“Records are made to be broken,” Trepanier said. “So now we start a new one. You don’t get better if you don’t play better teams, and we’re still the best team in San Diego County.”

Felicia Franke and Francine Moreno led Chino with 22 and 10 points.

In other tournament games:

Poway 56, Oceanside 39--Dawn Gigstad and Julie Schwan each scored 12 as Poway took third place.

Patrick Henry 49, Bonita Vista 36--Bonita Vista was able to stay within six points of Patrick Henry until the fourth quarter, when several turnovers cost the Barons in the fifth-place game. The Patriots outscored Bonita Vista, 19-10, in the final quarter. Rochelle Johnson (23) and Sorii Epps (14) combined for 37 of Patrick Henry’s points. Johnson also was the leading rebounder with 17.

San Marcos 43, Chula Vista 35--San Marcos (4-1 in the tournament, 5-5 overall) led, 28-15, at halftime but lost some momentum when the game’s leading scorer, Susie O’Brien (20) collected her fourth foul and left at the start of the third quarter. Chula Vista pulled within 38-35, but with 6 minutes remaining, O’Brien returned and San Marcos pulled away to take seventh place.