Wolverines Falter at End of 47-42 Loss

In little more than 90 seconds, Corrie Mizusawa of Lafayette Acalanes High turned defeat into victory against Harvard-Westlake on Saturday at Arco Arena.

Mizusawa, a junior point guard, scored nine consecutive points in the final minute and a half to wipe out a four-point deficit and lift the Dons to a 47-42 victory over Harvard-Westlake in the state Division III girls’ basketball final.

The game was filled with missed shots and missed opportunities, but Harvard-Westlake (29-6) was in position to win when Brooke Porter made a three-point shot with 2:05 left to give the Wolverines a 42-38 lead.

Neither team had been able to put together any kind of a scoring run because of poor shooting.

“We couldn’t make a 10-footer to save our lives,” Coach Casey Rush of Acalanes said.

Harvard-Westlake made 27.8% of its shots; Acalanes shot 23.7%.

So the Wolverines were feeling good with their four-point cushion--perhaps too good.

“I think we may have celebrated a little prematurely,” Coach Brian Taylor of Harvard-Westlake said.

Enter Mizusawa, who had been mostly ineffective against the Wolverines’ 1-3-1 zone defense. She launched a three-point shot from NBA range with 1:38 left and it swished.

Wolverine players were stunned.

“They took the momentum back so quickly it shocked us,” Taylor said.

With 1:10 left, Mizusawa scored on a layup to give Acalanes a 43-42 lead. Eight seconds later, Mizusawa stole the ball, was intentionally fouled by Michelle Ghodsian and made both free throws. She sank two more free throws with 14.7 seconds left, giving her 22 points.

The Wolverines were left thinking about what could have been.

They outrebounded the Dons, 45-35, but that wasn’t enough of a margin considering the Wolverines had three 6-footers. Fifteen turnovers in the first half didn’t help.

Doing her best to rally the Wolverines was 6-foot-2 Omelogo Udeze, who scored nine of her 20 points in the fourth quarter and added 18 rebounds and four blocked shots.

“There was a real high frustration level, then in the middle of the fourth quarter, it all started coming together,” Udeze said.

Udeze’s two free throws with 3:32 remaining gave Harvard-Westlake a 37-36 advantage, the Wolverines’ first lead since early in the second quarter.

“I felt so long as we snatched that lead it would turn the game around,” Taylor said.

And Taylor was right--except no one imagined Mizusawa stepping forward to snatch the lead back for Acalanes (30-4), which had two post players foul out in the fourth quarter.

“They [Harvard-Westlake] were pumped up and excited and maybe they thought they had it won,” Mizusawa said. “We came back with some big shots at the end.”

Said Udeze: “I just thought I had to give it my all. It was my last game at Harvard-Westlake. If I was going to go out, either win or lose, I was going to play as hard as I can for the last eight minutes.”

Taylor said if only the Wolverines could rebound, limit the Dons to one shot down court and execute their offense, they’d win.

Harvard-Westlake would have won--if not for Mizusawa’s heroics.