Knights Falter in Bid for Girls Title, 73-66 : Division II: Bishop Montgomery was ahead by five with less than two minutes left. But the team loses in double overtime.

It was late in the fourth quarter and the Bishop Montgomery High girls basketball team appeared poised to place the finishing touches on a storybook season.

On an improbable march through the state CIF playoffs, the Knights were leading by five points and were less than two minutes away from capturing their first state title.

That is when the dream started to fade for Bishop Montgomery.

The Knights were caught in the waning moments of regulation play and saw their lead disappear for good a few minutes later in a 73-66 double-overtime loss to Hayward Moreau on Friday night in the state girls Division II final at Arco Arena.

After the game, Coach Cedric Hurt could only wonder if the result might have been different if his team had been healthier for the game.

“We had seven players suffering from the flu all week,” Hurt said. “(Starting forward) Keisa Smith had the flu and laryngitis.”

Hurt said the team’s ill health was especially noticeable in the second overtime.

“With our players gasping for air, it was just a matter of time,” he said. “We just tried to not let it bother us. We didn’t want to make an excuse of it.”

Smith said: “We wanted to play hard no matter what we were feeling. We didn’t want (our health) to be a problem.”

Hurt tried to find other factors that led to his team’s defeat.

“When we got the lead, I thought we had a little cushion for a while, but we were hurt by mistakes and turnovers down the stretch,” he said.

Bishop Montgomery held a slim advantage through most of regulation play. The Knights led 24-21 at the half, 40-38 after three quarters, and assumed a 55-50 lead on a pair of free throws by guard Mirlen Martinez with 1:29 remaining.

Leading 60-57 with 12 seconds remaining in the period, the Knights appeared on their way to victory when Moreau guard Jennifer Kennedy missed two free throws.

After Kennedy’s second miss, Bishop Montgomery lost the ball out of bounds while struggling for the rebound. Moreau guard Kim Manifesto sent the game into overtime moments later on a three-point basket with 4.8 seconds remaining.

“I felt the shot (Manifesto) took was out of desperation,” Hurt said. “I didn’t think it had a chance to go.”

With 2.6 seconds remaining in the first overtime, Bishop Montgomery guard Shelley Dungo had a chance to put her team ahead when she tied the game at 64 and was fouled by Moreau’s Fatima Imara. However, Dungo missed the free throw and the game went into a second overtime.

Dungo hit a pair of free throws six seconds into the second overtime. That was the last time the Knights led as Moreau (31-2) went on a 9-0 scoring run the rest of the way to win its first state title.

Smith finished as the leading scorer in the game with 20 points. Forward Nicole Haynes scored 16 points and had a team high 12 rebounds.

It wound up as the longest game in the history of the state finals. But it was not the ending Hurt had envisioned for the Knights, who finished at 27-8.

“I really can’t say we’re disappointed about this season,” Hurt said. “The league we play in is one of the toughest in Southern California with Alemany and St. Bernard. So I really can’t say we’re disappointed, but I would’ve liked to have won.”

The Knights finished third in the Mission League. Despite the league finish, Bishop Montgomery won four games in the Southern Section II-A playoffs to advance to the division final against Alemany.

The Knights lost to their league rival, 56-51, in the II-A title game March 7 at the Bren Center in Irvine. But Bishop Montgomery received a second chance when the team was selected to the state Division II playoffs as the Southern Section II-A runner-up.

The team made the most of its second life by winning three games in the state playoffs, including a 45-44 win over Alemany in the Southern Regional final last week.

Although Bishop Montgomery lost its bid for the state title, guard Shauna Saiz believes the team gained a measure of respect.

“We showed a lot of people what we could do just by getting here,” she said. “We showed a lot by beating Alemany.”

Martinez said the team was upset by an article in the state program that called the Knights a “scrappy” team.

“In the book they called us a scrappy team, and to get here we had to do more than that,” she said. “I think we earned respect with the way we played all year.”

Despite the loss, Haynes said the team has nothing to be disappointed about.

“We played a good team and I think we showed we can hang with the best,” she said.