Montclair Prep Rolls to Victory Over Brethren Christian

Just when it seemed things were starting to look up for the Brethren Christian girls’ basketball team in the Southern Section Division V-AA final, everything came crashing down.

Warrior forward Heather Spowart suffered a mental lapse that resulted in an unconventional three-point play for third-seeded Van Nuys Montclair Prep, and a knee injury suffered by Danielle Hall a short time later proved to be too much as the top-seeded Warriors lost, 67-43, to the Mounties on Saturday at the Pyramid in Long Beach.

Montclair Prep’s Ciara Libaridian had just made the first of two free throws to put the Mounties ahead, 32-30, early in the third quarter, but after Libaridian missed the second free throw, Spowart took the rebound and inexplicably shot the ball into her own basket to make it 34-30.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it,” Montclair Prep Coach Bob Webb said.

The Warriors were stunned and the Mounties took advantage, going on a 15-7 run that gave them a 12-point lead with 1 minute 37 seconds left in the third quarter.

Hall suffered a knee injury with 1:09 remaining in the quarter and it resulted in a 10-minute delay while medical personnel attended to her. The deflated Warriors were outscored, 20-6, the rest of the way.

“I told Heather not to worry about [the wrong-way basket],” Warrior Coach Kim Harris said. “She’s one of the smartest and most instinctual players we have, but it was just a moment in time [that she made a mistake], and then losing Dani [Hall] was tough.”

The second-half collapse overshadowed a nice comeback by the Warriors that saw them cut a 10-point second-quarter deficit to one at halftime, and then take a 30-29 lead early in the third quarter when forward Jesiree Dizon, who led Brethren Christian with 10 points, hit a short jumper in the lane.

Much of the Warriors’ run came when Montclair Prep sophomore forward Eshaya Murphy, who scored 13 points in the first quarter and finished with a game-high 31 plus seven steals, was on the bench with foul trouble.