Trotter Is Brea’s Ticket to Final

Sophomore center Chelsea Trotter had her way inside against an undersized Compton Dominguez team and Brea Olinda cruised to its 10th consecutive Southern California regional final, 68-53, Thursday night at Brea Olinda High. Trotter scored 28 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and blocked four shots for the Wildcats, who led the entire game.

Brea Olinda (31-1), which last won a state title in 1994, will meet second-seeded Fresno Edison in Saturday’s 1 p.m. Division II regional final at Pauley Pavilion. Dominguez (27-7) had some quickness inside, but the fourth-seeded Dons had no answer for Trotter’s size.

“She did a nice job,” Dominguez Coach Albert Turner said. “She turned out to be a big factor.”

Trotter gave the Brea Olinda coaching staff a scare when she fell on her heavily wrapped left knee in the third quarter. She stayed down for a minute and briefly left the game, but she came back to score eight more points.

“It’s fine,” said Trotter, who missed last season with a torn left anterior cruciate ligament. “Somebody just ran into me.”

Most of Trotter’s points came inside the paint on one-on-one drives to the basket or off nifty passes from her teammates, who constantly fed her the ball in the post.

“She’s an amazing athlete,” Brea Coach Jeff Sink said. “She has guard skills. With that size and that athleticism, she’s difficult to guard.”

Trotter said her big night wasn’t unexpected.

“I had a lot of confidence in myself and in my team,” she said. “Nothing surprised me about tonight.”

Sink said he was slightly surprised his team ran well against a pressing Dominguez team.

“It was a real weird first half,” he said. “I didn’t want to run that much, but we were getting a lot of layups.”

Many of the layups came off steals from senior guard Erin Kelly, who finished with 13 points and five steals.

“Erin Kelly was the unsung hero,” Sink said. “Her quickness made them hurry up and play at a pace they didn’t want to play.”

Brea stretched its 18-10 first-quarter lead to 38-18 by halftime. Dominguez never came closer than 15 points in the second half. Dominguez was led by guard Shaketha Ashley, who had 15 points and made three three-pointers. But Ashley was Dominguez’s only legitimate threat on the perimeter.

“We knew they’d shoot a lot of threes, but we knew they couldn’t beat us from the three-point line,” Sink said.