She was the smallest player on the...

She was the smallest player on the court in the Southern California Regional Division II final Saturday at the Sports Arena, but no one had a larger presence than Sara Yee, the nearly 5-foot-1 point guard for Fullerton Troy.

With the defense laying off her, Yee made Villa Park pay dearly as Troy scored a 34-28 victory to earn its fourth trip to the state championship game.

Troy (32-1) will play North Coast Section champion Concord Carondelet on Friday at Arco Arena in Sacramento. Carondelet defeated Troy in the 2004 title game, 48-41.

Troy, which will be looking to make it three state titles in four years, defeated Villa Park for the second time in eight days.

Villa Park (31-3) didn’t even guard Yee in the Southern Section Division II-AA title game, a 35-31 Troy victory in which Yee scored her average six points.

But Yee scored eight of her team’s first 13 points, and 13 of its first 19 on Saturday. The Warriors led, 20-14, at halftime.

“She put the pressure on us to have to adjust,” Coach Kim Cram-Torres said. “That was the difference in the game.”

Yee, who will play at Columbia, finished with 15 points and didn’t have any turnovers in 30 minutes.

Yee made four of her first six shots, including three three-point baskets, the last of which was Troy’s last field goal for the next 12 1/2 minutes as Villa Park cut the deficit to 22-20 before Rhaya Neabors’ spin move under the basket made it 24-20 with 42 seconds left in the third quarter.

Among Villa Park’s three losses, two were to Troy, and the other was to Bishop Amat, which will play for the Division III title.

La Puente Bishop Amat 50, Oakhurst Yosemite 39 -- Candice Brown had 18 points and 12 rebounds and Kristen McCarthy scored 12 as the top-seeded Lancers earned their third consecutive trip to the state finals with the win at the Sports Arena.

It was the 69th victory in 70 games for Bishop Amat (34-1), whose only loss in that span was to Fullerton Troy, the No. 1 team in the state. That was also the only other time the Lancers trailed at halftime this season.

Buoyed by eight-for-17 shooting from beyond the three-point line, Central Section champion Yosemite (35-3) held a 25-24 halftime lead, but the Badgers weren’t nearly as efficient in the second half, when they made only two of nine long-range shots. Yosemite’s first 10 field goals were three-pointers.

“I knew if we kept playing defense and kept moving the ball, they’d lose their legs,” said junior Michelle Franco, whose defense helped slow the Yosemite scoring barrage that extended to 25 feet or more.

In the fourth quarter, it was all Bishop Amat. With the score tied, 36-36, after Yosemite’s Jennifer McNamara made two free throws, McCarthy made a 10-foot jumper that ignited a stretch of five-for-six shooting in which five players scored. In a three-minute span, Bishop Amat took a 47-38 lead with 3 minutes 51 seconds to go.

-- Martin Henderson

Los Angeles Windward 48, La Jolla Country Day 35 -- With Hailey Dunham and Erica Latimer dominating play inside and Monica De Angelis hitting from the outside at Fullerton, the Wildcats advanced to a state championship game for the first time with the Division IV victory.

Latimer, a senior swing player who has committed to UCLA, led the Wildcats with 14 points and had eight rebounds.

Dunham, who is headed to USC, had 12 rebounds to go with nine points, and De Angelis finished with 12 points, all on three-point baskets.

The Wildcats (29-3) will face San Francisco Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep (31-2) in the state championship game Friday in Sacramento. Country Day (21-11) was making its fourth consecutive appearance in a regional final.

L.A. Pacific Hills 62, San Luis Obispo Mission Prep 50 -- Demonstrating depth on offense and determination on defense, the top-seeded Bruins (30-2) defeated second-seeded Mission Prep (18-10) to advance to the Division V state championship game for the second year in a row with the victory at Cal State Fullerton.

Simone Ashellmire had 13 points to lead four players in double figures for Pacific Hills, which won its 19th consecutive game.

Freshman Bree Richardson, the daughter of former UCLA and Clipper point guard Pooh Richardson, had 12 points to go with four assists and eight steals. Pacific Hills forced Mission Prep into 26 turnovers.

The Bruins, who turned the ball over only 10 times, got 11 points from junior forward Martina White and 10 points, six rebounds and two steals from freshman forward Joanna Miller, who came off the bench.

Pacific Hills took control with an 18-5 run for a 31-18 advantage. Richardson had a field goal and a three-point play in the run, in which the Bruins scored twice off turnovers and twice more on second chances. Pacific Hills finished with 20 offensive rebounds compared with four for Mission Prep.

Mission Prep got 21 points from sophomore forward Leah Yetter and 17 from sophomore guard Paige Czarnecki.

-- Lauren Peterson