It All Goes as Planned: Brea Wins

All the comparable scores, individual matchups, tradition and big-game experience pointed to a Brea Olinda blowout in Saturday’s Southern Section championship game.

And Brea delivered.

The top-seeded Ladycats, turning in their best title game performance in Coach Jeff Sink’s five seasons, built a 42-point lead and scored a 76-45 victory over third-seeded Foothill to win the Division II-AA title at the Pyramid.

The championship is Brea’s 11th in a row, and it came over the last school to beat Brea in a section title game, in 1985.

It ended a 16-game winning streak by Foothill (27-4).

Brea (28-3) is ranked second in the state and begins pursuit of its seventh state title, and second in a row, in a Southern California Regional game on Tuesday.

“It’s great if you win by only two points, but in the final, you want to show you’re the best,” said Brea guard Lindsey Davidson, who scored 14 and started an 18-0 run with a three-point basket that gave Brea the lead. “And we played really well.”

The Ladycats, who have struggled with their shooting in recent title games in arena environments, had as many field goals in the first half as Foothill had shots attempted.

Brea shot 65.5% in the first half, going 19 for 29--including 10 for 12 in the second quarter. Foothill shot a respectable 47.4%, but had only 19 shots because of Brea’s stifling defensive pressure.

Foothill committed 12 turnovers in the first quarter as Brea took a 23-11 lead, breaking on top 21-4 less than six minutes into the game with that 18-point run.

“From about three minutes into the game, that was about as good as we can play,” Sink said. “We went to the hole, we shot the ball well, we were super aggressive, we rotated well. . . .”

Ladycat forward Kate Ides scored 12 points, making five of eight shots as Brea’s starters shot 61.5% from the floor.

Despite all the Foothill turnovers, the Knights didn’t play poorly, it was simply overmatched.

“They create a lot with their defense,” Foothill Coach Ty Watkins said. “They missed some outside shots and I thought, ‘Great, let’s eliminate the layups.’ Then Davidson hit a couple and that created problems.”

Brea was four for seven from the three-point arc. Foothill, which started only one senior, guard Jen Inmon, played Brea in a man-to-man defense--a rarity against the Ladycats. Brea committed 21 turnovers, though only eight in the first half while taking a 47-23 lead. The lead reached 42 late in the third quarter.

“We got the experience we needed,” said Chavaughn Brown, who scored 18 and had 14 rebounds. “I think we’ll do better in state now that we’ve been exposed to this.”

Foothill committed 34 turnovers. Brea’s Jeri Costello had seven steals, and Davidson and Jerri Armendariz each had four.

Coupled with a 58.2% shooting effort from the field (32 for 55), the Ladycats were unbeatable.

“Our defense leads to good offense,” said Chelsea Trotter, who scored 17 points and at one point made seven in a row. “When we turn up the defensive pressure, we get the fastbreak, we get the easy layups.”

And there were plenty of those.