Girls basketball: CdM gains post-seasoning

Barry Faulkner

NEWPORT BEACH - The Corona del Mar High girls basketball team has

some playoff experience ... now.

The Sea Kings milked an extra four minutes out of their first postseason

game in four seasons, rolling through enough highs and lows along the way

to season even the most naive novice.

The result was a 60-49 overtime win over visiting La Canada Saturday in

the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division III-AA playoffs,

propelling the Pacific Coast League champions (22-5) into Wednesday’s

quarterfinal against No. 3-seeded Harvard-Westlake (20-7), and after

Sunday’s coin flip, will travel to Harvard-Westlake.

“This is good experience for us,” said CdM Coach Elbert Davis, who

watched the senior-dominated Spartans (20-7) nearly leave his team with a

hollow experience. “We’ll use this next week and into next year. We

survived.”

CdM led by one at the end of the first two periods, before the Rio Hondo

League co-champions pulled even heading into the fourth.

CdM, however, exploded for the first 11 points of the quarter, including

two three-pointers by Charlene Quon and another by Andrea Gruber, to

assume command with 4:52 left.

Nearly two minutes evaporated before another score, but Il Ju Kwon’s

three-pointer ignited a 13-0 La Canada blitz, which culminated in a 46-44

Spartans’ lead with 45 seconds left in regulation.

The Spartan spurt included five CdM turnovers and two missed front ends

of one-and-one free-throw situations.

“That’s what happens when you don’t have any playoff experience,” Davis

said. “When things got tight, it was almost as if we wanted to give the

game away.”

CdM junior Kristin McCoy, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder all

season, gave the hosts second life when she took a Gruber pass at the

foul line and drove for a layin with 27 ticks left to knot it at 46.

La Canada worked for a final shot, which missed from 15 feet and Davis,

his players, and a sizable CdM crowd, exhaled in apparent relief.

Two McCoy free throws gave CdM a 48-47 lead 1:09 into the extra session,

but Shanell Ferguson’s follow shot put the Spartans on top with 2:19

left.

McCoy, who made just 2 of 10 first-half field-goal attempts and had just

seven points, until the layup that forced overtime, then took command.

She canned two more free throws to give CdM the lead for good with 2:05

left, then converted a layup 22 seconds later to create a three-point

cushion. She posted eight of her game-high 17 in overtime and also

collected nine rebounds, three assists, two steals and two blocked shots.

CdM then began a parade to the foul line, where it hit 8 of 12 in the

final 90 seconds, including 4 of 4 by Quon, to post its first playoff

victory since advancing to the IV-AA quarterfinals in 1995.

Quon, Gruber and Courtney Kawata each had a pair of three-pointers for

the winners, as the two teams combined for eight three-pointers during

one eight-minute span, beginning late in the third quarter.

Gruber, a sophomore, also helped spearhead CdM’s trademark full-court

pressure. She amassed a game-high seven steals, helping induce 29 La

Canada turnovers.

“Sooner or later, our pressure is going to get you,” Davis said. “It took

an extra quarter to do the job tonight, but we got it done.”

Quon finished with 12 points, while Gruber added 10.

Mijanou Pham (six rebounds, four steals and two points), Chris Eyre (nine

rebounds), Jackie McCoy (eight points, four rebounds and three steals)

and Carrie Hawkins (four points and three rebounds), also added balance

for the Sea Kings.

CIF Division III-AA Second Round

Corona del Mar 60, La Canada 49

Score by Periods

La Canada 9 9 15 13 3 - 49 Corona del Mar 10 9 14 13 14 - 60 La Canada - Adams 13, Fujimoto 12, Guza 10, Ferguson 6, McCoy 3, Kwon 3,

Hurst 2.

3-pt. goals - Fujimoto 4, Kwon 1, McCoy 1.

Fouled out - Adams, Jones, Guza.

Technicals - None.

Corona del Mar - K. McCoy 17, Quon 12, Gruber 10, J. McCoy 8, Kawata 6,

Hawkins 4, Pham 2, Meservey 1, Eyre 0, Klein 0, Parks 0, Alataha 0.

3-pt. goals - Quon 2, Kuwata 2, Gruber 2.

Fouled out - Eyre, Hawkins.

Technicals - None.