Crescenta Valley girls’ basketball reaches championship for first time since 1997
Plenty of emotions emanated from the Crescenta Valley High girls’ team bench once the final buzzer sounded Saturday night.
One group of Crescenta Valley players hugged while another throng of jubilant athletes pumped their fists with music blaring inside the Crescenta Valley gymnasium.
No matter the emotion, Crescenta Valley had plenty to celebrate after it recorded a 42-38 victory against Chino Hills in a CIF Southern Section Division I-A semifinal contest.
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Crescenta Valley (23-9) will meet top-seeded Mira Costa, which registered a 47-39 semifinal win against Burroughs on Saturday, in the championship contest at a time, date and location to be determined. Crescenta Valley will take part in its first title game since 1997, when it fell, 59-55, to Buena at Long Beach State University.
“It’s just such an amazing feeling to see what we’ve been able to do,” said Crescenta Valley Coach Jason Perez, whose team took second in the Pacific League behind Burroughs. “I think we’ve been playing our best basketball since the second half of league and it’s carried over very well into the playoffs.
“We had a good defensive plan put in by [assistant] Nike Flot and we limited them to good scoring chances. We got the surge we needed to begin the second half.”
The Falcons went on a 15-0 run to begin the third quarter and build a 38-21 lead before holding off a late charge by the Huskies (21-8). Chino Hills, which took second in the Baseline League, cut it to 39-38 with 1:12 left in the fourth quarter.
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Polin Megerdichian made a free throw to make it 40-38 with 43.8 seconds left and Caity Bouchard clinched it with two free throws with 13.4 seconds remaining.
“It’s the first time in almost 20 years that the team will play in the championship game,” said Megerdichian, who finished with 13 points and five rebounds. “We got up big in the third quarter and we had to continue working very hard because Chino Hills has a good team.
“We were able to build a lot of momentum in the third quarter and we usually play well in the third quarter. It’s just so awesome to play for the championship.”
It’s just such an amazing feeling to see what we’ve been able to do.
— Jason Perez, Crescenta Valley High School girls’ basketball coach
Crescenta Valley, which reached the semifinals with a 51-50 road win against second-seeded Huntington Beach, got 11 points and nine rebounds from Alisa Shinn and seven points, four assists and four steals from Josie Brock. Shinn and Brock are reigning All-Area selections.
“We’ve played in a lot of close games and it got us ready for the playoffs,” Shinn said. “We’ve been practicing well and its led to having a lot of success in the games.
“Coach told us at halftime not to let anything come between us. We stayed with it.”
A layup by Shinn off a nice steal and pass from Brock gave Crescenta Valley a 34-28 lead with 4:10 remaining in the third quarter. Megerdichian completed the 15-0 surge by making two free throws to extend the advantage to 38-21 with 2:56 left in the quarter.
Chino Hills began its comeback bid in the fourth quarter, led by Janessa Thropay. Thropay made a three-pointer to pull the Huskies to within 39-34 with 2:57 left. Thropay (game-high 20 points) scored on a layup and was fouled with 1:12 to go to make it 39-38. However, Thropay missed the free throw following a timeout.
“I think we just started to run out of gas in the fourth quarter,” Perez said. “We were then able to dig down deep and make some free throws at the end.”
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Charles Rich, charles.rich@latimes.com
Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich
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