McGuire Picks Up the Slack for Troy

Amanda Livingston carried the Fullerton Troy girls’ basketball team most of the season, so when the Warriors’ only senior starter had an off night during the state Division II championship game, junior Meghan McGuire was happy to repay the favor.

McGuire scored 27 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to help the Warriors to a 53-40 victory over Vacaville on Friday at Arco Arena. It was Troy’s first state title in any sport.

“I’m glad [Livingston] got to go out with a win because she’s done so much for this team and this program the last four years,” McGuire said.

“It was hard on her because she wanted to do more, but she did do a lot of things that didn’t show up in the stats.”

The 6-foot-1 UCLA-bound forward finished with eight points, making four of 14 shots, seven rebounds and three blocked shots.

Livingston passed the torch to McGuire, the only junior starter at Troy (31-2). There was also help from the freshman class: Lauren Sims had eight points and point guard Sara Yee had two points and five assists. Yee also limited Vacaville’s Tamar Gruwell to 11 points.

Vacaville (32-3), the Sac-Joaquin Section champion, shot only 28.6% (16 of 56) from the field; Troy made 19 of 46 (33.9%).

“Their pressure defense, all day, they were in our faces, not letting us do what we wanted to do,” Vacaville Coach Bob Fernandez. “Mentally, maybe they took us out of the game.”

The game was closer than the final score. There were 24 ties or lead changes going into the fourth quarter, when Troy outscored Vacaville, 16-5.

Troy’s rally began in the third quarter, with Vacaville leading, 30-25. McGuire’s three-point field goal ignited a 20-7 run that gave Troy a 45-37 lead with less than two minutes remaining and Vacaville fouling in desperation.

“That first three was big because it got [McGuire] going,” Troy Coach Kevin Kiernan said. “We just needed some kind of offensive spurt. We needed to find somebody who could make two baskets in a row.”

From that point, McGuire made five of her last six shots and seven of her last eight free throws.

San Francisco Convent of the Sacred Heart 68, San Luis Obispo Mission Prep 59 -- Without a player taller than 5-11, the only answer Convent had for 6-4 junior center Katherine Suderman was a pair of guards nearly a foot shorter, but they were enough to pave the way for a Division V title.

Freshman Jen Hum-Traverso and senior Liz Brown, each 5-5, keyed a 28-point third quarter that extended a 30-28 halftime lead to 58-42. The Cubs (29-3) then withstood a Mission Prep rally in the fourth quarter.

Hum-Traverso scored 10 of her game-high 21 points during an 11-2 run. That came on the heels of Brown scoring 10 of her 17 points in an 8-0 run to open the third quarter.

The lead reached 60-42 before Mission Prep (23-6) launched a 15-0 run to pull within 60-57 with 2:21 remaining. The Royals didn’t score again until the final two seconds. Suderman finished with 20 points and 16 rebounds for the Central Section champion.