SOUTHERN SECTION BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS : 4-A GIRLS : La Quinta Jalewalia Win Their Duels

They’ll be teammates in the fall at UCLA, but La Quinta High School’s Amy Jalewalia and Laura Collins of North Torrance got on the court a few months early.

Their styles are different; Collins is a post player who hammers away inside and Jalewalia is at her best in the open court, with her sharp outside game.

But if you could call Wednesday night’s Southern Section girls’ basketball 4-A quarterfinal a head-to-head battle between the two, Jalewalia got the best of it. She scored 32 points--one shy of her season average--to lead host La Quinta to a 60-49 victory over North Torrance.

La Quinta earned its first trip to the semifinals since 1985. The Lady Aztecs (25-3) will play Palm Desert, a 56-36 winner over Ganesha, on Saturday.

Collins, North Torrance’s 6-foot center, was frustrated by La Quinta’s triangle-and-two defense. Collins was double-teamed most of the night by La Quinta’s Heather Brannan and Janet Kanno and ended up with 16 points.

North Torrance (17-8) used a box-and-one defense on Jalewalia and held her to 10 points in the first half. So La Quinta’s guards went to work from the outside instead.

“Our guards loosened everything up for us,” La Quinta Coach Kevin Kiernan said. “After that, North had to play us more honest. It’s the first time all year we took our game plan right down to the letter. A lot of times we flake around.”

A pair of set shots from the point by Kanno gave La Quinta an eight-point lead early in the second quarter, and the Lady Aztecs stretched the lead to 28-15 at the half.

“I’ve yelled at our guards all year long,” Kiernan said. “They hate me now. But I was really happy for them tonight.”

With more room to move, the 6-2 Jalewalia scored La Quinta’s first 12 points of the second half. She made 11 of 22 shots for the game, including two three-pointers, and added 19 rebounds and six steals.

Collins was 8 for 13 from the field and grabbed 16 rebounds.