Bell-Jeff girls’ basketball loses title shot against St. Genevieve
Bellarmine-Jefferson’s Claire Borot shoots and is fouled by St. Genevieve’s Elizabeth Tapia in a Santa Fe League girls’ basketball game at Bell-Jeff on Tuesday.
Burbank — Bellarmine-Jefferson High’s girls’ basketball team was presented with an opportunity Tuesday evening against St. Genevieve.
A victory by the Guards would give them a share of their first Santa Fe League championship in four years.
Bell-Jeff looked shaky early in the game on its home floor, falling behind by 15 points in the first half. Although the Guards rallied back to tie the score three times in the second half, they were never able to take the lead, as St. Genevieve led from wire to wire in a 42-41 victory.
The Guards (10-12, 7-2 in league), who defeated the Valiants (17-9, 8-1), 60-41, in the teams’ first meeting Jan. 21, stand in second place one game behind St. Genevieve with one game left in the regular season.
Bell-Jeff, ranked No. 3 in CIF Southern Section Division VI, can secure second place with a victory Thursday against visiting St. Pius X-St. Matthias. The Guards won the teams’ first meeting Jan. 26, 48-26. The Guards can share the championship if St. Genevieve — No. 15 in Division IV-A) — loses at home Thursday against Pomona Catholic. However, that doesn’t seem likely, as the Valiants won the squads’ first meeting, 48-13, on Jan. 26.
“A lot of people wrote us off at the beginning of the season,” Bell-Jeff Coach Claudia Villa said. “We were a team that a lot of people overlooked and I think some teams didn’t take us very seriously.
“But for us to be able to even put ourselves in a position to play for a league championship is a big accomplishment. Our girls deserve a lot of credit for how they have turned their season around.”
And what a turnaround it’s been. Bell-Jeff began the season 0-9 and looked to be in for another tough league showing. In the previous two seasons combined, the Guards went 5-26 and 2-16 in league and failed to qualify for the playoffs.
But this season, the Guards will make it back to the postseason regardless of the outcome of Thursday’s game.
“It’s hard to lose like we did today and we did struggle at times,” said Bell-Jeff’s Dalila Rincan, who led her team with 12 points to go along with seven rebounds. “But we will learn from this loss once we get to playoffs. We will fight in the playoffs and I know we will be successful.
“To be where we are now from where we were when we started, shows that we have improved so much this season. Nobody had faith in us, but we believed in ourselves and we proved that we came to play.”
Bell-Jeff received nine points, seven rebounds and three steals from Cosette Balmy, eight points, 15 rebounds and five blocks from Claire Borot and seven points from Caitlyn Couch. Unfortunately, Borot fouled out with 4:13 left in the game.
The Valiants took advantage of poor Bell-Jeff shooting (three of 15 from the field) in the first quarter to jump out to a 15-9 lead. The Guards were also hampered by six turnovers in the stanza. St. Genevieve had the opportunity to go up by a bigger margin, but converted just two of its nine free-throw attempts.
Bell-Jeff again struggled on offense in the second quarter, ending the half shooting just 21.4% (six for 28). That enabled the Valiants to increase their advantage to 15, 28-13, with 58 seconds remaining in the first half. St. Genevieve ended thee second with a 28-15 cushion.
“I have to give credit to St. Gens; they came out here and it looked like they were ready to go right off the bat,” Villa said. “We were kind of hesitant and maybe we came out a little too comfortable after beating them the first time around. It was like they really wanted it this time and we were too casual.”
The Guards did battle back. They came out energized in the third quarter, outscored the Valiants, 16-3, and tied the score at 31 after three.
After St. Genevieve took back the lead early in the fourth quarter, Bell-Jeff tied the score twice, the last at 40 with 35.8 seconds remaining on a nice spin move in the lane by Rincan. But on the inbounds pass, a long throw to Valiant Jada Aldana with 28 seconds left led to an easy basket that gave the visitors a 42-40 lead.
Balmy sank one free throw with 7.7 seconds to make it a one-point game, 42-41. On the inbounds play, the Valiants turned the ball over with 2.9 seconds left. But when the Guards took the ball out with 1.1 seconds to play they turned the ball over as well. St. Genevieve then inbounded the ball as time expired.
