It’s Just Another Game-Winner for Rancho Alamitos’ Stecker : III-A girls: Her turnaround jumper with two seconds left gives Vaqueros a 68-66 victory over South Hills.

After nearly four months of basketball, everything seems routine to Anita Stecker.

Even a Southern Section championship-winning shot.

Stecker made a six-foot turnaround jumper with two seconds remaining to give Rancho Alamitos a 68-66 victory over West Covina South Hills for the III-A girls’ title Saturday at the Bren Center.

Vaquero Coach Bob Becker called Stecker’s basket, “The Big One.” Stecker, however, considered it a play she has made hundreds of times since practice began in November.

“When I got the ball, I wasn’t thinking, ‘This is the shot to win the game,’ ” Stecker said. “Just like during practice or any game this season, when I catch the ball inside, I turn and shoot.”

That comment drew laughs and a quick chorus of “We know” from some of Stecker’s teammates, who assembled for the postgame press conference. Stecker, the Vaqueros’ second-leading scorer with a 15.5 average, was only six of 16 from the field against South Hills, but no one was complaining about her taking the last shot.

“We couldn’t ask for anything better than what we got,” Becker said. “Shannon (James, Rancho Alamitos’ leading scorer during the season) made the pass, so it was senior to senior, star to star, and Anita dropped ‘The Big One.’ ”

That part wasn’t so routine. With 12.2 seconds left, South Hills’ Tiffany Hall made two free throws to tie the score, 66-66, and cap a furious rally in which the Huskies erased a 16-point third-quarter deficit.

Rancho Alamitos, which used a timeout between Hall’s free throws, didn’t use another until after the second shot. Instead, the Vaqueros went directly upcourt into their offense.

Stecker caught James’ pass in the left side of the lane after stepping in front of South Hills’ Stephanie Ring. With Ring closely contesting the shot, Stecker leaned to her right and banked the ball cleanly into the basket.

“We wanted to play our best man defense, and they made a great shot with our best defender right in their face,” South Hills Coach Paul Reed said. “We thought about going to full-court pressure after Tiffany’s free throws, but we didn’t want to have a breakdown and let them get an easy shot.”

Little came easily for Rancho Alamitos after it opened a 54-38 lead with 3 minutes 58 seconds left in the third quarter. Up to that point, the Vaqueros’ full-court pressure defense had given top-seeded South Hills (24-3) fits, forcing many of the Huskies’ 37 turnovers.

“I thought we’d be able to attack the press and turn it into an offensive weapon for us instead of a defensive weapon for them,” Reed said. “But it obviously gave us a lot more problems than I thought it would.”

Center Akilah Rodgers scored 16 of her 18 points in the first half for Rancho Alamitos to help the Vaqueros take a 39-30 halftime lead. In the third quarter, Timerie James made three three-pointers and scored 13 of her team-high 24 points to seemingly put the game in Rancho Alamitos’ control.

But after trailing by 16 points, South Hills went on an 8-0 run to close the gap, and then chipped away at the deficit throughout the fourth quarter.

“We started playing the scoreboard instead of the game, and South Hills wasn’t going to give up,” Becker said. “As soon as we let down a little, they got right back in it.”

Until Stecker dropped The Big One.