Buena Makes Fifth Straight Appearance in Title Game : Girls’ basketball: After losing the first three, Bulldogs focus on repeating as champions.

The Buena High girls’ basketball team’s march to a Southern Section final is almost commonplace.

The Bulldogs play Mater Dei tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Ventura College in the Division I-A championship game, Buena’s fifth consecutive section appearance in a title game.

Winning the championship, though--that’s been another matter.

The Bulldogs lost three consecutive championship games, from 1990 through 1992, before breaking through last season with a dramatic 44-43 victory over Thousand Oaks.

Senior forward Laura Dahl, who along with teammate Michelle Giordano were the first freshmen to play on the Buena varsity, wants to continue that tradition.

“Even though this is our fourth time (in a final), we’ve only won it once, and I want this season to be the best,” Dahl said. “I think this year our chances are better than they have been the past few years to win (the section) and state championship.”

Giordano is Buena’s leading scorer, but her teammates are a talented group that by their own account play as more of a team than last year’s squad.

Dahl averages 9.3 points a game, and Buena employs a three-guard lineup.

Junior Kara Newman averages 5.8 points and 3.5 assists, but the key for Buena could be the sophomore tandem of Eboni Conley and Kori Sebek, both of whom followed in the Giordano-Dahl tradition and played on the varsity as freshmen.

Conley, a 5-foot-8 point guard, is Buena’s most versatile player. She averages 10.5 points, 5.8 rebounds and 5.6 assists a game. Sebek adds 10.5 points and 3.8 assists.

They will have to contend with Mater Dei’s 6-foot center Leticia Oseguera (18.4 points, 8.4 rebounds) and guard Melody Peterson (15.1 points).