City Girls Finally Make It to State Final

For the first time in the history of the state high school basketball tournament, a girls’ team from the City Section will be playing for a championship this season.

That was assured when Crenshaw and Harbor City Narbonne each won second-round tournament games Thursday night, advancing to the Southern Regional Division I final at the Pond of Anaheim tonight at 6. The winner will play the Northern Regional winner for the state title next Saturday.

Regional finals for boys and girls will be played in five divisions today, with the Division I, II and IV games at the Pond and Division III and V at Cal State Fullerton.

Since the state tournament began in 1982, the City Section hasn’t fared well. The furthest any of its girls’ teams had advanced was the regional final in 1990 when Washington lost to Inglewood Morningside.

Second-seeded Crenshaw isn’t a total surprise finalist. The Cougars (26-3) defeated Narbonne by 20 points in the City Section Division 4-A championship game last Friday and feature a talented lineup led by Stanford-bound forward Naila Moseley. They are coming off easy victories over Oxnard and Crescenta Valley.

The surprise is Narbonne, which was 6-15 three years ago and has never won a City 4-A title. The Gauchos (24-5) won at San Diego Rancho Bernardo on Tuesday and upset top-ranked Ventura Buena on Thursday.

Two sophomores and a freshman start for Narbonne.

“To be honest, I thought we were at least a year away from doing anything noteworthy,” Narbonne Coach James Anderson said. “We’ve got talented kids, but we’re so young I didn’t think we would get this far. I certainly never thought we would win at Buena.”

The Gauchos turned some heads in December when they upset defending state Division I champion Santa Ana Mater Dei and Laguna Hills in the Huntington Beach Marina tournament. They continued to prosper even after losing their best player, 6-foot-1 freshman center Ebony Hoffman, to academic ineligibility in February.

Their senior leader is 5-10 center Kawai Matthews, who averages 15 points. Sophomore forward Amber White averages 14 rebounds.