Calvary Chapel Falls When Shots Don’t

The rims at Arco Arena may have been tight, as players said. Or maybe the players were tight when it counted.

Or maybe they were just unlucky.

Whatever the case, Calvary Chapel’s 23-game winning streak ended one game short of a girls’ basketball state championship Saturday. And it ended because the ball played precariously on the rim.

And fell out.

Atherton Sacred Heart won its fifth state championship with a 48-43 victory over Calvary Chapel in the Division IV title game.

The Gators (30-6) moved into second place on the all-time list of state champions, trailing seven-time winner Brea Olinda.

Calvary Chapel, making its first championship appearance, finished 28-6.

“Toward the end, we missed a couple of big shots, they went in and out,” Calvary Chapel Coach Russ McClurg said. “T.J. [Gause] misses one in the corner, Cathy [Joens] misses a layup that goes in and out. I mean, c’mon.”

Calvary Chapel trailed at halftime, 24-21, and fell behind by 10 in the third quarter as 6-foot-3 Courtney Laird (15 points, 10 rebounds) showed her presence. She scored eight of her team’s 13 points. Sacred Heart led going into the fourth quarter, 37-28, and was up, 44-35, with 3 minutes 55 seconds remaining.

But the Eagles had one more rally left. Shayna Fabre made two free throws.

Gause made a short basket, and Joens scored four seconds later after stealing the ball.

Calvary Chapel trailed, 44-41. Momentum had swung.

“I think we were getting a little too relaxed,” said Sacred Heart’s best defensive player, Janessa Jurian. “We were thinking too much that we had it. It was a wake-up call.”

The Eagles weren’t done. They still got shots, good shots. But they went one for eight with the game on the line.

Gause, who had converted a six-footer on the baseline just moments earlier, had a shot skip over the rim.

Joens, who won a state title as a freshman with Woodbridge, missed a layup in which the ball seemed to bounce on the rim for hours.

Joens also had a three-point attempt rim out.

“We hit those,” McClurg said, “we win the game.”

Said Jurian of Calvary Chapel’s futility: “I was definitely feeling lucky.”

As Calvary Chapel struggled, Sacred Heart made five of six free throws to stretch the lead to 48-41.

Calvary Chapel went seven shots without a basket before Joens’ layup in the final seconds.

Joens scored 18, making nine of 26 shots. She was zero for eight from three-point range.

She missed five consecutive shots in the third quarter as Calvary Chapel went 5:34 without a field goal and Sacred Heart stretched its halftime lead. Calvary Chapel got only one offensive rebound that quarter.

“We wanted to hold Joens under 20 and make her really work hard for that,” said Sacred Heart Coach Lamont Quattlebaum. “We wanted to hold the rest of the team to 14-15 points.”

Calvary Chapel got 25 points from its other players, including seven apiece from Marcene Guerrero and Fabre.

But the Gators’ only senior, Alexandra Lamprell (seven points), limited Joens to 18. Joens had averaged 25 points in her last five playoff games.

“A gym’s a gym,” Joens said of the rims, though some of her teammates said they were tight. “I had open shots. I just missed. . . . You can’t afford to not take shots.”

Sacred Heart’s role players took their shots, too. Jurian (11 rebounds), who averaged 3.4 points and only four shots per game, scored 10, all in the first half. Freshman point guard Melissa Bayol, who averaged 5.9 points, scored 10.