Girls’ Basketball: Sea Kings win big
The Corona del Mar High girls’ basketball team knew it came into Wednesday night’s CIF State Southern California Regional Division III opener against San Diego Kearny with a decided size advantage.
When the Sea Kings are able to execute that size advantage as well as they did Wednesday, they are definitely tough to beat.
Junior forward Natalia Bruening and junior center Krista Anderson combined to make 17 of 18 field-goal attempts as CdM eased past Kearny, 70-34, on its home court, earning the first CIF State playoffs win in program history.
No. 5-seeded Corona del Mar (23-8) heads into uncharted territory Saturday night, as it faces No. 4 Orange Lutheran on the road at 6 p.m. in a SoCal Regional Division III quarterfinal game. Orange Lutheran got past San Valley Poly, 55-35, in another first-round game Wednesday.
For the Sea Kings, this year’s state playoffs opener was much different than last year’s, when they lost a double-digit lead and were stunned by Los Angeles Garfield.
“It’s awesome,” said Bruening, who scored 20 of her 26 points in the first half and added nine rebounds, three blocks and two assists. “It’s completely different than it was last year. It was really nice to come in and dominate this game. I’m super-excited to continue playing. It had been a week, and I was missing it already. It’s really good to come out and play, especially starting with a home game.”
Corona del Mar came out on fire against Kearny (22-7), the San Diego Section Division 3 runner-up. The Sea Kings took a 23-5 lead after a quarter behind Bruening, who made all seven of her field-goal attempts — all of them layups — in the opening stanza.
The 6-foot-4 Bruening scored three of the baskets on putbacks, two on assists from senior point guard Brianna Westrup and one on an assist from senior forward Maria King. For the game, she made 12 of 13 shots, only missing a hurried jumper at the shot-clock buzzer early in the second quarter.
“We made some good passes, we had some good angles and she was working hard for good position,” CdM Coach Mark Decker said. “It was pretty much exactly as we had practiced the last couple of days, so it was good to see, especially coming out like that.”
Westrup had 14 points, five assists and five steals for the winners. Anderson had 10 points and made all five of her shots, adding five rebounds and three blocks.
Tam scored eight points and had three steals for CdM. King chipped in four assists and three steals for the Sea Kings, who scored their second-highest point total of the season. CdM led 39-11 at halftime and took its biggest lead of the game, at 60-19, on a three-pointer by junior forward Kat Hess late in the third quarter.
Bruening and Westrup probably could have approached their season-high point totals of 39 and 16, respectively. But with the large lead, each sat out the fourth quarter.
“We definitely worked on that [in practice],” Westrup said of the team’s offensive execution. “In prior games, we talked about how our defense was kind of carrying our team, so we had to get our offensive side of the game a little bit more on board to execute better. You’re that much better of a team if you can play both ends very well. Decker was drilling it into us. I think we did the same play like 40 times in a row, just to get it right.”
Senior guard Brianna Smith scored all of her team-high 14 points in the second half for Kearny. Sophomore Jennell Garland added 11 points for the Komets, who were playing without starting senior point guard and team captain Aitana Garland. Kearny Coach Bracy Smith said Aitana Garland suffered a concussion in the team’s San Diego Section Division 3 title game loss to Rancho Bernardo last weekend.
But more than that, it was CdM’s size that hurt Kearny, which had just one player taller than 5-foot-7.
“In our league, we’ve got a couple of girls that are like 6-2,” Bracy Smith said. “But [Bruening is] probably the biggest girl that we’ve played all year. The size kind of killed us.”
The Sea Kings know that Saturday night’s game will be much tougher. Orange Lutheran won the CIF Southern Section Division 3A title last week, edging Trinity League foe Santa Margarita in the championship game.
Decker said it’s exciting for the program to add another “first” to its ever-growing list of accomplishments, by notching the first CIF State win. But the Sea Kings are not satisfied.
“I think it’ll be a really good test for us,” Decker said of playing Orange Lutheran. “I think if we offensively play like we did [tonight], we’re pretty tough to stop. They’re a great defensive team, so it won’t be that easy, but I think it’ll be a great challenge for us.”
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CIF State Southern California Regional Division III Playoffs
First round
Corona del Mar 70, Kearny 34
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Kea 5 – 6 – 10 – 13 — 34
CdM 23 – 16 – 21 – 10 — 70
Kea – Smith 14, J. Garland 11, Bowyer 3, Candler 2, Giuidone 2, Gonzalez 2.
3-pt. goals – Smith 4, J. Garland 1.
Fouled out – None.
Technicals – None.
CdM – Bruening 26, Westrup 14, Anderson 10, Tam 8, Hess 7, Grippo 2, Pridemore 2, King 1.
3-pt. goals – Tam 1, Hess 1.
Fouled out – None.
Technicals – None.
