Orange Lutheran Knows the Challenge

Few give seventh-seeded Orange Lutheran much of a chance at home against second-seeded Fullerton Rosary (19-3) on Wednesday in a Southern Section Division III-A girls’ basketball quarterfinal game.

The 21-team division that began with 13 first-place teams is loaded, and second-seeded Rosary is among the top 10 teams in the state, according to Cal-Hi Sports. Still ...

“We’re a good team, a lot better than anybody’s giving us credit for,” said Orange Lutheran Coach Tony Matson.

Orange Lutheran lost to The Times’ No. 11 team, San Clemente, 38-37, in overtime on Dec. 22. A night earlier, the Lancers lost to No. 9 Ventura Buena, 48-35, but trailed by only five with 1:40 remaining. No. 5 Rosary also lost to Buena, 63-54.

“If we play the way we’re capable, we’ll give Rosary a game, but they’re the type of team that can make everybody look silly,” said Matson, who was in charge of Brea Olinda’s defense and post players for five seasons before taking over at Orange Lutheran in 2000-01. “If you can get by their press, you can play with them.”

That makes the play of senior point guard Kristin Terpstra especially important. If she can break Rosary’s press, the ball can reach Lindsay Allen, a 6-foot-3 senior who is headed for UC Irvine. She has averaged 16 points and 9.8 rebounds.

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The highest-scoring game of the playoffs took place Saturday, when Rancho Cucamonga Los Osos defeated Victorville Silverado, 96-74, in the first round of Division I-AA.

The Grizzlies, who had a 50-32 halftime lead, scored 34 points in the third quarter. Allie Patterson finished with 24 points, Leslie Collins 19 and Richae Kater 16 off the bench.

Los Osos (18-8) plays host to second-seeded Norco (27-0) on Wednesday in a second-round game, meaning the two highest-scoring teams of the first round will play each other. Norco defeated Downey, 83-45.

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Paul Castillo, the section’s assistant commissioner in charge of basketball, said the section needs to take a long look at the guidelines used to place teams in playoff brackets because they appear to be outdated when combined with the current two-year experiment of seeding the top 16 boys’ and girls’ teams.

This is the first season the section has seeded 16 teams in each of the 10 divisions in girls’ basketball. But only in Division II-AA were all 16 teams slotted in their correct positions for a 16- or 32-team bracket.

Previously, the section seeded only the top four positions, and the placement of teams in the brackets followed guidelines that kept the top two teams from the same league on opposite sides of the bracket, kept teams from the same league out of the same quarter bracket, and slotted teams based on their finish in league play.

“It can’t be a true 16 when you start throwing in the other factors,” Castillo said. “You don’t have the flexibility you do when you only seed four. Now we need to go back and look at the bracketing rules that were already in place and see how those mesh with seeding a bracket of 16.”

Because it lost a coin flip to fourth-seeded Ventura to determine which would be the first-place team from the Channel League, third-seeded Buena could meet top-seeded Moreno Valley Canyon Springs in the Division I-A semifinals instead of being matched against second-seeded San Clemente. Canyon Springs, led by Jennifer Risper and Brandi Jones-Fitzgerald, is ranked No. 7 in the state by Cal-Hi Sports.

“I was going to call CIF,” said Ventura Coach Joe Vaughan, “but figured it would be a waste of time.”