LIVERMORE, Calif. – They’re scrappy, they hustle all 32 minutes and play aggressive defense, and have some girls that can shoot the ball. If you didn’t know who they were before, you will now.
They’re the Carondelet Cougars and on Thursday night at Las Positas College they went toe-to-toe with the MaxPreps No. 2 ranked team the nation. And while Cal-Hi Sports No. 20 ranked Carondelet didn’t beat Dallas suburb DeSoto, the local girls from Concord gave the Eagles as good a game as anyone on the Texas team’s schedule of nationally ranked teams.
In fact, the 56-50 victory by DeSoto in the championship game of the Platinum Division of the 21st Annual West Coast Jamboree bore resemblance to a 51-46 DeSoto victory over national No. 3 Montverde Academy of Florida, or a 60-56 victory over national No. 16 Duncanville, Texas.
DeSoto (16-1) led 15-12 after one quarter and 31-22 at the half after a 7-1 run to end the second quarter, but they never really could shake Carondelet. The Eagles only added a point to the lead in the third quarter and went to the final period with a 46-36 advantage. DeSoto got it to 56-44, their largest lead of the game, but the Cougars refused to fold and closed out the game on an 8-2 run.
“Tonight was an incredible atmosphere,” said Carondelet head coach and Jamboree co-Tournament Director Kelly Sopak. “The place was rocking all game. It really felt like a state playoff game with the level of intensity and competitiveness on the floor.”
“We understood their ranking and their physical prowess but we fully expected to win the game,” Sopak continued. "However, DeSoto was just too much tonight. They are one of the most impressive teams I’ve seen in my coaching career. They come at you in waves and they capitalize on every miscue with relative ease.”
Based on the three-game performance, DeSoto star Sa'myhah Smith won the David “Scoop” Jackson Most Valuable Player award for the Platinum Division. In the championship victory over Carondelet, the 6-2 Louisiana State-bound Smith made her presence known right away when she had a blocked shot on the Cougars first two possessions.
Smith finished with 16 points, 11 rebounds and four blocked shots. In the opening game - incidentally, the first game ever in which the team from Texas played with a shot clock - Smith led the way in a win over San Joaquin Memorial-Fresno with 18 points and nine rebounds.
In the semifinals against Salesian, a 61-44 victory, she had just five points, but she snagged 11 rebounds and finished with seven assists, feeding teammate Amina Muhammed several times. She also had five blocked shots.
Tionna Herron, a 6-4 Kentucky-bound post, had three solid games to earn an all-tournament selection. Against Carondelet, Herron finished with a game-high 20 points, eight rebounds and two blocks.
Another one of the seven senior Division 1 major college commits from DeSoto to earn all-tournament honors was Texas-committed Muhammad. Although the 6-3 forward only had four points (7 rebounds, 2 blocks) in the title game win, she had a game-high 17 points in the Salesian win and 10 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks against San Joaquin Memorial.
The third D1-committed DeSoto senior that made all-tournament is Ayanna Thompson. The 6-1 Mississippi-committed guard had 10 points and four assists in the Carondelet win. With Carondelet making a late third quarter run to pull within 40-34, Thompson hit two key three-pointers to shift the momentum and gave the Eagles their 10-point advantage entering the final period.
The other future D1 Eagles are Southern Methodist-bound Jiya Perry, and Kansas State-bound Jamia Harris and Michayla Gatewood. Perry had six points against Carondelet. Harris had 12 points against San Joaquin Memorial. Gatewood didn’t play in the Jamboree.
DeSoto may have seven major Division 1 college-bound seniors on its roster, but Carondelet (9-1) has two, and one of them, Stanford-bound Talana Lepolo showed just why she may be the best true point guard in California in the game against DeSoto, when she may very well have been the best player on the court.
Lepolo, who sat out all of last season and the first four games this season, looked like she was in playoff form. She started very slowly in the championship game after picking up three fouls - including one she should not have taken - in the first four minutes of the game. Lepolo had to sit, but when Sopak re-inserted her, she played defense like she had no fouls. In fact, Lepolo did not commit another foul the rest of the game and finished with 15 points, seven assists, six rebounds and three steals.
Lepolo's perimeter defense was a factor in keeping Carondelet in the DeSoto game, and was a key in the Cougars 61-50 semifinal victory over Cal-Hi Sports No. 7 Archbishop Mitty-San Jose. In that game, she had 12 points, five assists, five rebounds and four steals, and scored nine of the Cougars’ first 11 points in the final period.
Lepolo was one of three Carondelet players to be named all-tournament along with Epps and Jaime Kent.
Epps, a UC Davis-bound guard, was held to six points against DeSoto but had a game-high 18 points with two three-pointers in the semifinal win over Mitty.
Kent, a 6-0 junior wing who is starting to put herself on the recruiting radar screen, led Carondelet with 16 points against DeSoto. She had nine points in the Mitty win.
One final Carondelet girl who received honors was Megan Dickert. The 6-0 senior post hustled the entire tournament, played great defense and showed true grit. As a result, she was the recipient of the Jim Capoot Memorial Award. That honor goes to the player who exemplifies the qualities of sportsmanship and inspirational play Capoot demanded from his players as the head coach of Vallejo. Capoot, who had won a 2010 CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division II title, was tragically killed while in the line of duty as a Vallejo police officer a little over a month before the 2011 Jamboree.
“The West Coast Jamboree was an amazing experience for our young ladies and our program,” said Desoto head coach Andrea Robinson. “We were able to play many different styles of basketball that we would never see in our state, and playing with a shot clock was a great opportunity. I will now be a huge advocate for shot clocks in Texas.”
“I want to thank Visit Tri-Valley for helping sponsor us,” continued Robinson. “I also want to thank Visit Tri-Valley and the Jamboree organizers for the first class treatment. It was a great West Coast experience."
As for Carondelet, the fact the Cougars were even in the Platinum Division title game is a story in itself.
On Monday, and the day before the start of the Jamboree, Carondelet was a favorite to win the Diamond Division it was hosting. Then, as a result of two teams having to drop out due to COVID protocols, Sopak had to make a decision for the good of the tournament. As a result, he moved his Cougars from the No. 2 division to the top division along with the Bishop O’Dowd-Oakland team they defeated 61-54 in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Now, after not even supposed to be playing in the Platinum Division, Carondelet gave one of the nation’s top teams a real test.
“It was an absolute honor for us to play in the Platinum Division and compete with national powers like DeSoto, Archbishop Mitty, Bishop O’Dowd and Salesian,” Sopak said in conclusion.
