Buena’s Giordano Gave Thousand Oaks the Old 1-2

Only seconds before Buena High basketball player Michelle Giordano became a local hero, her spirits took a nose-dive through the Loyola Marymount gym floor.

Buena trailed nemesis Thousand Oaks by a point and a Bulldog shot with five seconds left had missed and bounded directly to Lancer guard Alissa Corey.

Giordano figured that Corey would control the ball and run out the clock and the game would be lost.

Thousand Oaks would beat Buena in the Southern Section Division I-A girls’ championship for the third consecutive year. Giordano, for all her individual success--she was the Channel League player of the year last season as a sophomore--still would not experience a Southern Section championship.

But Corey couldn’t control the ball. It slipped from her grasp and she dribbled it out of bounds. “When I saw her dribbling and lose the ball, hope rushed back into me,” Giordano said.

Suddenly it was Buena’s ball from the right corner with three seconds left. The ball was inbounded to Giordano near the baseline on the right side of the key. Guarding her was center Marion Jones, whose layup with 21 seconds to play had given the Lancers, the state’s top-ranked team, the one-point lead.

Giordano faked left, spun right and put up a shot at the buzzer. It missed, but Lancer Samantha Clarke was whistled for a foul on Giordano as time expired.

The nine other players left the court and stood by their benches. Giordano was alone at the foul line in front of 1,500 fans. The game rode on her two shots.

“There was a lot of things going through my head,” she said. “I tried to just stay calm and shoot them like I do in practice so I could make them, but I knew I had to or everybody would kill me.”

Was she nervous?

“I was and I wasn’t. I guess you could say I’m pretty good in pressure situations,” said Giordano, a 73% foul shooter who had made three of four free throws as she stepped to the line.

She had thought of situations like this before. What player hasn’t?

“You go to practice sometimes and you’re joking around with friends, saying, ‘If you make this (shot), there’s no time left on the clock. . . .’ But that’s the first time that’s happened. It was a new experience for me.”

New, and unforgettable.

The first free throw swished through. The score was tied. One more point and the championship would belong to Buena, its first since 1984.

Her next shot nicked the front of the rim but fell through to give Buena a 44-43 victory. “I jumped up and while I was in the air, (my teammates) all kind of rampaged me and I was on the bottom of the dog pile,” she said.

The Bulldogs were jubilant. The Lancers were in tears.

“It was the greatest thing,” she said. “It’s great to know that you beat an undefeated team that you were the underdog and you came through. It was a sweet victory because it was T.O.”

Said Buena Coach Joe Vaughan: “It was a big-time pair of free throws by Michelle. She really came through. That’s the person you want out there.”

Giordano, a forward, finished with 19 points. She has averaged 17.5 points and 8.6 rebounds this season.

As a sophomore, she averaged 15.4 points and 7.9 rebounds, was the team’s MVP and a Times All-Ventura County selection.

Handling pressure is nothing new for Giordano. Two seasons ago, she and fellow ninth-grader Laura Dahl became the first freshmen to play for the Buena varsity.

“I thought she was really mature beyond her years as a freshman,” Vaughan said. “Not only physically but mentally and emotionally.

“She’s been a real consistent player, a very hard worker and a person who has her head screwed on.”

And best of all, one who makes her free throws.