Running on Reserve, Brea Makes It to State Title Game

So this is Brea Olinda basketball, where even when things go wrong, it still doesn’t matter.

The Ladycats couldn’t afford foul trouble, couldn’t afford to get outrebounded, couldn’t afford a lot of things with their best player on the bench with a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

And they pulled through as a team--all the way down to the junior varsity player who got in the game--to beat Fresno Edison, 69-65, and advance to a record eighth state championship game.

Brea (31-3) won the Southern California Division II girls’ basketball title Saturday at the Pyramid on the strength of its reserves, led by Jill Trader in her first career start and Jerri Armendariz.

“There are some stories worth telling--this is one of them,” Brea Coach Jeff Sink said. “I played everybody in the building. . . . That’s what Brea basketball is all about, when all hell breaks loose, the kids come off the bench and play hard. All the kids believe in the program.”

Trader, a 5-11 junior forward, stood in for injured Chelsea Trotter. Trotter averaged 21 points and 11.5 rebounds and Trader had a Trotter-like performance, a game-high 17 points and team-high seven rebounds.

Armendariz missed last year’s regional final, a 64-52 victory over Edison, because she loaned her jersey to Trotter, who brought the wrong one. But Armendariz was invaluable, scoring 14 points. Like Lindsey Davidson (7 points, 8 assists, 4 steals), Armendariz made some terrific interior passes to Trader, who was eight for 13 from the field.

“Sink said an unsung hero had to step up, and five or six of us stepped up at different times in the game,” said Armendariz, a 5-3 senior guard.

Brea will play Friday at Sacramento’s ARC0 Arena against Pleasanton Amador Valley (30-2), a 63-41 winner over Cupertino Homestead. Edison finished 28-2.

With officials calling an extremely tight game, Brea lost a 10-point lead before halftime, trailing 36-34, as starters Kate Ides, Davidson and Jeri Costello, and reserve Kara Ralph were on the bench with three fouls.

The Ladycats were outrebounded, 25-17, and were four of six from the free-throw line, compared to Edison’s 13 of 20.

“Everything we couldn’t afford to happen, happened,” Costello said.

But freshman Daveri Bonnewitz, sophomore Tara Hefferly, and juniors Lissa Lawrence and Ashley Saari gave Brea quality minutes in the second half. Brea built a 52-45 lead going into the fourth quarter, Trader scoring six points and Edison going 0-for-9 from the field.

Edison’s Tonisha Yancey, who averaged 22.7 points, scored 13 on a three-for-18 shooting performance.

The Brea lead reached 13 points, 62-49, with Bonnewitz and Hefferly filling in for Ides (10 points, 5 rebounds) and Costello (eight points), but upon their return, Edison rallied. The Tigers pulled to 64-61 with 2:20 remaining and Ides went to the bench with five fouls.

Trader got a steal, and Costello hit a 15-footer that Edison Coach Bill Engel called “a backbreaker,” for a 66-61 lead with 1:35 left.

Costello made two of four free throws, and Armendariz made one of two, in the final minute, and Brea’s defense held on.