Jalewalia, La Quinta Win Title

The La Quinta High School girls’ basketball team, after dominating the Garden Grove League for nine years without winning a division championship, finally broke through Friday night.

The third-seeded Aztecs, led by Amy Jalewalia and Heather Brannan, defeated second-seeded West Torrance, 72-62, in front of 2,830 at Cal Poly Pomona’s Kellogg Gym to win the Southern Section 4-A championship.

La Quinta came close to a title in 1985, when it finished as the runner-up in the 2-A.

This year, Jalewalia, a senior, decided she wasn’t leaving La Quinta for UCLA without a Southern Section title. And with a little help from her teammates, she got it. Now La Quinta heads into the Southern State Regionals with a 27-3 record.

Jalewalia was double- and triple-teamed most of the night, but it didn’t stop her from hitting her shots and her open teammates.

Jalewalia connected on 11 of 16 field goals, including her only three-point attempt, and nine of 14 free throws to finish with 32 points.

But it was Brannan and Tanya Krill who forced West Torrance out of its triangle-and-two defense.

Brannan, who is sometimes shy about shooting, scored 25 points, 10 above her average, and had 14 rebounds. Krill added 10 points.

“Tonight I just tried to put everything else out of my head and just go for it and it worked out,” said Brannan, who was nine of 18 from the field and seven of 12 from the free-throw line.

Most of Brannan’s baskets came on the weak side, where she was wide open because of the extra attention drawn by Jalewalia.

“They were so worried about Amy that all we had to do was just swing it to the other side,” La Quinta Coach Kevin Kiernan said. The score was tied at 17-17 after the first quarter. Brannan sank four of six baskets as the Aztecs outscored West Torrance, 15-11, in the second quarter for a 32-28 halftime lead.

Part of La Quinta’s second-quarter success came after Kiernan called off the press.

“They were beating it pretty easily,” he said. “We would get a steal now and then, but I didn’t like the odds.”

West Torrance’s Rosa Olloque, a 5-6 senior guard, was a one-woman fast break. She took advantage of La Quinta’s press by scoring on drives, layups and short jumpers in the lane for 16 of her 24 points in the first half.

After a halftime lecture on defense, La Quinta came out in a livelier triangle-and-two defense.

“They were nervous and they weren’t moving their feet laterally,” Kiernan said. “I told them at halftime that if Olloque drives, we lose, because Amy is going to foul out helping you out.”

The Aztecs held West Torrance scoreless for the first 3 1/2 minutes of the third quarter while running off eight points for a 40-28 lead. La Quinta limited Olloque to one point in the quarter and seven the rest of the game.

La Quinta led by as many as 16 before West Torrance (22-6) cut its deficit to 51-46 with 6:30 left, but the Aztecs scored the next five points to put the game away.