Pinewood Defeats Chadwick, 61-45

The girls’ basketball team from Los Altos Hills Pinewood High has a fairly simple approach to winning games.

“We live and die by the three,” senior guard Lauren Smith-Hams said.

Smith-Hams and her teammates were living large Friday after defeating Palos Verdes Chadwick, 61-45, in the state Division V championship game at Arco Arena.

Smith-Hams made an all-divisions-record seven three-point baskets and scored a Division V-final-record 31 points as Pinewood won the title in its first state final appearance.

Chadwick (29-6), also playing in a state championship game for the first time, outshot the Panthers, 29% to 27%, but Pinewood outscored Chadwick, 30-3, from three-point range.

Pinewood finished 31-1, having lost only to unbeaten San Jose Archbishop Mitty, which plays in the Division I final tonight against Palisades.

“We knew they were a three-point shooting team and in the first half, we did a good job getting out on the perimeter and getting a hand in their faces,” Chadwick Coach Heidi Oversier said.

But early in the fourth quarter, “the fatigue factor did set in,” Oversier added.

Chadwick trailed at halftime, 23-21, before forging a 37-36 lead as junior forward Erin Gilliland scored 12 of her team-high 18 points in the third quarter.

Smith-Hams, however, led Pinewood to victory in the final quarter. She made a three-point basket from the left wing to beat the shot-clock buzzer on the first possession, made a jump shot on the second, then added consecutive three-point baskets and a free throw a few minutes later as Pinewood surged to a 55-41 lead. She finished with 17 points in the quarter.

“I was a little tight in the first half,” Smith-Hams said. “I was thinking, ‘It’s my last game, I have to do great.’ In the second half, I loosened up.”