Mustangs pay for rough start

LONG BEACH — It took a quarter for the Costa Mesa High girls’ basketball team to get settled in Friday night in the CIF Southern Section Division IV-AA championship game.

By then, it was already too late.

No. 1-seeded St. Mary’s Academy of Inglewood took a big early lead and coasted to a 64-37 win over the Mustangs at the Walter Pyramid, denying Costa Mesa its first section title since 1993.

“We just got off to a really poor start shooting,” said Costa Mesa Coach Jim Weeks, who watched his team shoot just two for 25 (8%) in the first half. “Making two baskets in the first half, you’re not going to be in the game really often. They got a couple of shots off their press, and that really got them going.

“We just never got going.”

The Mustangs (20-11) tied the score, 2-2, two minutes into the game, when Jasmine Werdel made a short jumper on Michelle Figueroa’s assist. St. Mary’s Academy (29-5), unfazed, scored 17 consecutive points to end the quarter with a commanding 19-2 edge.

“They were pretty aggressive,” said Costa Mesa senior forward Nikki Brannon, who scored six points and pulled down six rebounds. “They were just a little too strong. I think our nerves got the best of us [in the beginning]. We weren’t playing as a team really.”

The third-seeded Mustangs, who had their 12-game winning streak snapped, steadied themselves in the second quarter, largely thanks to Figueroa. The junior point guard began aggressively driving the lane, and made seven points in the quarter — all on free throws.

“Coach told us we shouldn’t give up, even though we were losing,” said Figueroa, who scored a team-high 13 points, including 11 free throws. “We had a chance against this team, but their inside shots killed us.”

St. Mary’s center Angel Smith, though just a freshman, stands 6-foot-2 and was a big presence inside for the Belles. She finished with 11 points and altered countless Mustangs shots.

“She’s a really good post,” Figueroa said. “She hurt us the most.”

The Mustangs, who battled back in a quarterfinal win over Fairmont Prep and a semifinal win over Lake Arrowhead Christian, couldn’t do it again. The closest they got in the second half was 39-22, on Jennifer Courtney’s steal and basket with 4:40 left in the third quarter.

But St. Mary’s immediately went on an 11-0 run to put the game out of reach, taking its largest lead of the game late in the quarter at 50-22.

“We lost it in the first quarter,” Werdel said. “The last couple of games, we’ve been able to come back in the third and fourth quarters, but they were just too far ahead.”

Weeks said he knew that St. Mary’s Academy, which beat Bishop Montgomery on Jan. 4, would be very tough. Costa Mesa, by comparison, lost to Bishop Montgomery, 64-38, in the first round of last year’s Division III-A playoffs.

Coach Bo Corona’s team, which lost in the Division IV-AA semifinals last year, won its first section title.

“It’s been an eight-month journey,” Corona said. “Since we lost last year in the semifinals, we came back in the spring and started to train. It’s been a journey. They bought into it.”

But at least later in Friday night’s game, the Mustangs also bought into something — that they could hang with St. Mary’s.

“We lost the last three quarters by [10], and that says a lot,” Weeks said. “We improved a lot this year, just not quite good enough to be there [at that level].”

The Mustangs’ season is not over. They have qualified for the CIF State playoffs, and will learn their first-round matchup on Sunday afternoon.

The first-round game in the Southern California Division III region is scheduled for Thursday.

“It’s not over yet,” Weeks said before lifting up and examining the Mustangs’ CIF Southern Section runner-up plaque. “We’ll look at this on Monday, and they’ll appreciate it a lot more than they do tonight.”

The Walter Pyramid scoreboard inadvertently had Friday’s final score as 64-38, due to a fourth-quarter scoring error on a free throw that was mistakenly credited to Costa Mesa.

CIF Southern SectionFinal

Division IV-AA

St. Mary’s Academy 64,

Costa Mesa 37

Score by Quarters

Costa Mesa 2 12 10 13 — 37

St. Mary’s 19 14 17 14 — 64

Costa Mesa -- Figueroa 13, Courtney 9, Brannon 6, Trinh 4, Gentling 3, Werdel 2.

3-pt. goals -- None.

St. Mary’s Academy -- Rayford 15, Smith 11, S. Redmond 8, Manier 7, Ludgood 7, Zimmerman 5, Lemelle 4, I. Redmond 3, Hamilton 2, Haynes 2.

3-pt. goals -- None.