Giordano Again Will Push Buena Through Final Hoop : Girls’ basketball: Senior who made winning free throws a year ago leads Bulldogs into Division I-A title game.

Michelle Giordano was living a basketball shoe commercial.

“Fouled at the buzzer! No time left, down by one point, shooting two free throws to win the championship!”

It was the stuff of dreams, if not advertising copy writers. Buena High’s Giordano--as every youngster who ever shot a basket has done--had imagined such a wildly tense moment, the kind of situation that makes you a hero.

After all, everyone wants that. (And those free throws are so easy to make in a fantasy.)

But it’s another world actually being there, alone on the court, teammates and opponents waiting on the bench because there will be no rebound to grab.

Thousand of eyes dissecting you. Sound cascading in your ears, adrenaline coursing through your body. So easy, almost tempting, to give into nerves. Failure is so irrevocable. So public.

Who wants that?

In last year’s Southern Section Division I-A championship against nemesis Thousand Oaks, Giordano was fouled at the buzzer, her team trailing by one point.

Buena had lost to Thousand Oaks in the championship game the past two years. Miss the free throws, and Giordano becomes Excuse No. 3.

She calmly sank both shots, and was buried under jubilant teammates.

“I’d rate it as one of the great moments in our program,” said Buena Coach Joe Vaughan, whose Bulldog teams have won over 450 games, three section titles and two state championships in his 19 years.

“There are people that still mention it as the most exciting game they ever had a chance to watch.”

Tonight, Giordano will lead Buena into its fourth consecutive section championship game. The Bulldogs (23-2) take on Mater Dei (24-3) tonight at 7 p.m. at Ventura College in the Division I-A final.

The spotlight will shine on Giordano, the 6-foot senior who averages 17.9 points and 7.8 rebounds a game and has signed with Arizona. And that’s just fine with her.

“I love big games like this,” she said. “I like to play under pressure; it’s just if everybody else can handle it.”

It’s a rare person who can shrug off tension like she did.

“She had all the pressure on her shoulders, and she just relaxed and shot them like she did in practice,” Buena forward Laura Dahl said. “It’s such an odd situation to have to perform at a normal level.”

Giordano said people still approach her to talk free throws.

“Everybody always asks me, ‘Were you scared? Were you nervous?,’ ” Giordano said. “I say, ‘I don’t know, I didn’t even really think about it.’ ”

The play stands as a defining moment in her stellar career, but it is not the only time she faced a difficult situation with aplomb.

Three years ago, Giordano and Dahl were the first freshmen to earn spots on the Buena varsity.

Though Giordano said she was talented enough to start, she came off the bench.

“Coach Vaughan didn’t want to put the pressure on of having a freshman start,” she said. “It was new for him too.”

Said Vaughan: “I thought she was mature beyond her years, not only physically but mentally and emotionally.”

The experiment was a smashing success. Giordano played an integral part of Buena’s advance to the I-A title game.

As a sophomore and junior, she used her deadly medium-range jump shot and physical play to come into her own. She averaged 15.4 points as a sophomore and 17.5 as a junior. She was the Channel League’s most valuable player and a Times’ All-Ventura County selection each year, and a Division I All-State selection last season.

“She’s definitely one of the top five players we’ve ever had in our program,” Vaughan said. “I’m not into rating players, but I’m comfortable saying that.”

Giordano is the second all-time leading scorer in school history, behind Teresa Palmisano.

But her chance to break Palmisano’s record was derailed when she sustained a knee injury Jan. 25.

“A Rio Mesa player landed on my leg after she shot and popped my knee out,” she said. “It was my first major injury. I was worried I had torn my anterior cruciate ligament. I knew if you did that you were out forever.”

Fortunately, she only sprained the medial collateral ligament in her right knee, and missed five games. She plays wearing a bulky brace that limits her mobility but has not affected her shooting.

The team lost one game during her absence, but was well-served by Vaughan’s emphasis on balance and team play.

“A lot of teams, if they had someone like her, that’s all they would go to,” he said. “But I think that limits you in the long run.”

Buena has played well since Giordano’s return, breezing through the playoffs.

“I think it is expected of us to get to the CIF finals,” Giordano said. “If we lost, there would have been a big to-do.”

Giordano likes Buena’s chances.

“This year the team is exceptionally close,” she said. “We’re better friends so we play like more of a team. And that just makes it so much easier.”

Easier to play well, to win and to deal with the pressure--though Giordano doesn’t need much help with that.