SANTA CLARA — The Sacred Heart Cathedral girls were loud, proud and in charge on Saturday, pushing and shoving their way past Miramonte for a 69-48 victory in the CIF Northern California Division I Championship.
Nobody for the Fightin’ Irish scored more than 12 points, but it was the depth and ferocity with which the entire team played that made the difference as a group that was 4-10 in early January will now have a week to prepare for a state title game, set for Friday at 6 pm at the Golden 1 Center, where the Irish will take on Serra of Gardena.
Sure, it was St. Patrick’s Day, but there was hardly any luck needed for a team that was able to wear the fourth-seeded Matadors down, opening up a double-digit lead at the start of the fourth quarter and outscoring Miramonte 24-11 over the final period to turn what was once a tight game into one that was finished with reserves on the court for the final minutes.
The only sort of lucky break that Sacred Heart Cathedral (15-14) got was an uncharacteristically cold performance from the field by Miramonte’s Lehigh-bound senior Clair Steele, who scored just 11 points and shot 2-for-20, a performance that was a mix of difficult rims at the Leavey Center and an aggressive SHC defense that left hardly an opportunities in the paint. Forced to the perimeter, the Matadors went 4-for-24 on 3-pointers and never led after the opening moments of the second quarter, when freshman Milan Tuttle gave the Irish the lead.
The 10th-seeded Irish closed the half on an 8-2 run to take a 33-26 lead, with Tuttle scoring the final four of the half. With the way they were bullying Miramonte (28-6) around, that gap seemed a lot larger than seven, and though the Mats did get it down to four on a Jordyn Bryant and-1 midway through the third, the lead grew back to eight by the end of the quarter and got out of control in the fourth as the Irish were simply too big and too strong.
“We’ve got a lot of bodies, so we were able to rotate a lot of people in,” said head coach LyRyan Russell.
Saupuni Mavaega scored the opening points of the fourth to build the lead to 10, and while Miramonte did trim it to 53-44 on a Bryant free throw with 4:07 left, SHC answered with a 10-0 run to seal things, capped off by consecutive threes by Gianna Silvestri and Yaniah Fleming to set off a raucous celebration.
