Laguna Hills Completes Run by Getting Jump on Pacifica

The way Laguna Hills High won a Southern Section championship Saturday was as improbable as the Hawks’ journey to the final.

A team that lost seven in a row in midseason and went into the playoffs with a .500 record, the Hawks completed their amazing run by doing something few expected them to do.

They beat Pacifica at its own game.

Running against a running team, Laguna Hills built a big first-quarter advantage and scored a 50-45 victory to win the Division II-A girls’ basketball title at the Pyramid in Long Beach.

“Sometimes, the best defense against a game like that is to try to turn the tables on them,” Laguna Hills Coach Jim Martin said. “We got a good run, and then bogged down in the second quarter.”

Laguna Hills was at its best in the first quarter, when it made seven of 13 shots and took a 17-4 lead, and again in the fourth quarter, when Pacifica pulled to within four points on three occasions, the first with 5 minutes 2 seconds remaining.

Sophomore point guard Megan Aaker scored eight of her game-high 22 points after that, the Hawks made 11 of 13 free throws--after going eight for 17 in the first three quarters--and Christen D’Alessandro made the biggest shot of her life.

D’Alessandro scored with 3:51 left, extending Laguna Hills’ lead to 41-35.

“That was a huge shot,” said Martin, an assistant on the 1997 team that won the state title. “There were two shots that stick out in my mind--Courtney D’Alessandro’s basket early in the fourth quarter as the shot clock expired [to make it 37-27], and Christen’s 12-footer on the wing. She had the courage to take that shot.”

Christen D’Alessandro, a freshman reserve forward, scored eight points--four in the last four minutes--and had three steals.

Laguna Hills, still nursing a four-point lead, played the final 2:15 without its second-leading scorer, Shannon Owens, who fouled out with nine points, 12 rebounds, three steals and three assists.

The Hawks were seven of eight from the free-throw line after Owens’ exit.

“That was the key to this run,” Martin said. “The kids shake off whatever adversity we have and keep playing.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that our schedule, with some tough losses [to six teams ranked in Orange County’s top 10], helped us in these situations. When the game can go either way, someone makes a big play.”

Laguna Hills (18-13) looked comfortable in the big-game environment, especially in the early going against the Mariners (22-8), the six-time defending Garden Grove League champions, who got past the second round for the first time.

The Hawks, who beat the No. 2- and No. 3-seeded teams to reach the final, beat Pacifica in transition in the first quarter, scoring eight points on layups in taking the 13-point lead. They were outscored in each of the last three quarters as Pacifica’s press began paying dividends, forcing 22 turnovers.

But Laguna Hills’ first-quarter sprint caught the Mariners by surprise and created too big a hole to climb out of against the Hawks’ 2-3 zone. Diana Barreras scored 10 points and Dominique Valencia had nine points and seven steals. The guard duo had been averaging 31 points combined.

“I stressed that we were faster than they were, but that didn’t seem to be the case,” Pacifica Coach Garth Anderson said. “It might have been jitters.

“Beating us down the floor was a little discouraging. That’s our modus operandi.”

But Laguna Hills turned it into its own.