Red-hot Villa Park sinks Edison

COSTA MESA — The rain had stopped Saturday night, before the CIF Southern Section Division II-AA girls’ basketball semifinal game began.

No one told that to Villa Park, though. The Spartans were raining down three-pointers all night at Estancia High.

Villa Park made 13 shots from beyond the arc in all, pulling away in the second half for a 78-47 win over Edison.

The Chargers’ season is not over. Coach Dan Wiley said his team has still qualified to play in the CIF State Division II playoffs, which should begin March 9.

In Saturday night’s game the third-seeded Chargers (23-5) actually led the second-seeded Spartans (23-7) for much of the first half. In the second half, though, Villa Park was simply too lights out, pouring in 49 points.

Senior Brianna Salvatore did the most damage, with 26 points and seven rebounds.

“You’ve got to give it to them,” said Edison junior Bonnie Samuelson, who finished with a team-high 22. “They hit every shot. I mean, if they’re shooting good, even if we had a hand up they were still hitting the shots.”

Freshman Karlie Samuelson scored nine and junior Christina Marquette had eight for the Chargers, who were only behind 29-25 at halftime before Villa Park’s blitz. It denied Edison’s bid to make it to CIF finals for the second straight year.

“The main problem we had was that they started hitting their shots,” Marquette said. “Then that energized their press, and when we’d go down and get open shots, we’d miss them. That kind of sucked the life out of our team.”

Rilee Horton, Lauren Grego, Erica Hersh and Katelyn Meline had two points each for the Sunset League champions.

Villa Park junior guard Brittany Bauman had 15 points — all coming on five three-pointers. Sisters Nicole (a senior) and Connie (a sophomore) Ballestero each had 11 points for Villa Park, which will face defending champion Brea in the final.

“You have to give it them,” Edison Coach Dan Wiley said. “They didn’t seem to miss hardly anything. But we had a good year. Nobody expected us to get this far. We’re young, and they’ve been together a long time. They had to do this, because they’re seniors and they haven’t gotten this far before.”

Edison, by comparison, starts two juniors, two sophomores and a freshman. Now, the Chargers hope they can make a run in the CIF state playoffs. Last year, they made it to the second round of the Southern California Regional before falling to Mater Dei.

“We hope to play [Villa Park] again [at state],” Marquette said. “We don’t want to go out on this note.”

Edison had a 17-game winning streak snapped.