Harbor Women Earn a Trip to Oakland With 77-59 Win

Harbor College’s team bus coughed and sputtered and barely made it to Valley College for Saturday night’s Southern California women’s regional second-round playoff game with the Monarchs.

It was about the only thing that didn’t run well for the Seahawks.

Running, gunning and pressuring with abandon, Harbor won its 17th consecutive game and upset second-seeded Valley, 77-59, to advance to next week’s state final eight in Oakland for the first time in school history.

Harbor did it by holding Valley (29-5) to 20% shooting from the field and only 16 field goals. The quicker Seahawks (28-6) pressed Valley into 26 turnovers as well, and outrebounded the Monarchs, 66-58.

“We could not put the ball in the basket, and we got some pretty high-quality shots, too,” Valley Coach Doug Michelson said.

Valley’s top two scorers, Katina Mines and Rosa Mendez, made only nine of 35 shots.

Mendez led the Monarchs, last year’s state runners-up, with 17 points and Mines had 11.

Two Harbor players had double-doubles--Kim Young (35 points, 14 rebounds) and Bridgette Williams (17 and 11)--and Angie Adams added 12 rebounds and seven points.

Young, who also blocked four shots, was the catalyst for seventh-seeded Harbor, and Michelson designed several schemes to defend the 5-10 sophomore forward.

Nothing worked.

Harbor led, 34-30, at halftime, and began to pull away early in the second half. During one five-and-a-half minutes span, the Seahawks outscored Valley, 20-3, to take a 56-38 lead.

It became a free-throw contest after that, and Harbor made 15 of 21 from the line in the final four minutes. Young was 11 of 12 from the line during that span.

“We couldn’t keep the ball out of her hands,” Michelson said. “Maybe that was a tactical mistake on our part.”

Michelson became enraged when Harbor Coach Louie Nelson called a timeout with six seconds to play. Nelson claimed he did so just to give Young the opportunity to leave the game to a standing ovation, but Michelson saw it otherwise.

“It was a no-class move and I told him so,” Michelson said. “I think he did it to humiliate us.”