SACRAMENTO, CA - The way Serra exploded out of the starting gate the Cavaliers looked more like young race horses about to blitz the field.
When Southern Regional champion Serra bolted to an 18-4 first quarter lead the game had all the makings of a rout, but despite the 70-54 final score being the largest margin the Cavaliers had in the game, NorCal champ Sacred Heart Cathedral did not go down easy in the CIF Division I title game at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
“We set some goals at the beginning of the season that weren’t just about winning basketball games,” said Serra head coach Mckinsey Hadley. “But this team was able to achieve the ultimate goal of winning a state championship. The hard work, dedication and effort, and the maturation they’ve shown has been exemplary and paid off in a state title.”
Cheyenne Givens led Serra (25-8) with 20 points on 6-of-6 from the field. She made her only 3-pointer but was a pedestrian 7-of-10 from the free throw line, however Givens was 4-for-4 at the charity stripe down the stretch after Sacred Heart Cathedral had closed to 55-50 with three minutes remaining.
Alexis Tucker, a 5-foot-10 junior forward, was everything as advertised for the Cavaliers. Her outside shooting wasn’t spectacular but around the basket she can finish down low and when she takes a girl to the block she’s hard to stop. Tucker had 12 of her 19 points and six of her nine rebounds in a first half that saw Serra with a 31-18 lead, but she was held in check in the third quarter by the Irish. However, after Sacred Heart Cathedral closed to five late she had the fresher legs and was instrumental in 15-4 run to close out the game.
After senior star Rachael Duru (five points, nine rebounds) made her first basket of the game with 3 minutes left to put the Cavaliers up 57-50, Tucker made a spin move in the lane, scored and was fouled, and when she completed the three-point play and then followed that up with two free-throws after an Irish basket that made it 62-52 with 1:40 remaining, the deal was pretty much sealed.
“I just wanted to push myself after they made that final run,” said Tucker, who has offers from Michigan, Texas Tech, Gonzaga, and almost every Big West school, plus interest from some schools in the Pac-12. “I didn’t want to think that floor is 94-feet long. I wouldn’t let that floor get me. I just had to keep pushing.”
High school courts are 84-feet long but college and NBA courts like the one at the Golden 1 Center have an extra 10 feet in length.
Sacred Heart Cathedral made more than just the one final run before finally running out of steam. After trailing by 13 at the half the Fighting Irish opened the second half on an 8-0 run that cut it to 31-26, and then they inched ever so close at 34-31 before a media timeout helped Hadley get the Cavaliers back in stride to close out the third quarter on a 10-4 run that got them to 47-38 entering the final period.
Although the Fighting Irish made the final run after falling behind 55-42 with 5 minutes left, it was from the point of that media timeout that the Cavaliers defense began to take control. All in all Serra forced 27 turnovers, and although only 11 were in the second half, seven came after the media timeout.
“We told the team ‘thank God for the timeout,” mused Hadley when asked what he told the team after the Irish had closed to three points.
“Before the timeout we missed some shots and had some turnovers ourselves and let them run, continued Hadley. “But we turned up our defensive intensity and got the game back to the order it was in the first half. We’re not the deepest or tallest team but we want to control the pace. If you play our pace you’ll find you don’t have the gas in your tank at the end like we have.”
Serra now has a CIF Division I title to go with their 2013 Division IV state title. With the championship the Cavaliers are now 2-1 in CIF title games after a heartbreaking 65-61 double overtime loss to McClatchy (Sacramento) in the 2015 Division I state championship.
After a 5-12 start to the season and just getting back to and over .500 last week in the NorCals Sacred Heart Cathedral head coach LyRyan Russell saw the negatives of the game but the positives of the season as well.
“We came out ice cold and had too many turnovers. You can’t win a game with 27 turnovers,” Russell said. “But I’m proud of my girls for turning things around this season. It takes a lot of character to come back from a 5-12 start.
“Even in this game when we were down big at the half I felt like the game was still winnable,” continued Russell. “That’s the kind of team we have. No quit. I go into every game thinking and believing we can win. All we needed was a chance and that’s why we’re here.”
Sacred Heart Cathedral (15-15) was looking for its sixth state championship but instead falls to 5-4 in CIF state title games.
As has been the case this season a lot of girls scored for the Fighting Irish, with nine getting their name in the scorebook compared to six for Serra, but while three Cavaliers hit double-figure scoring including Smith College-bound Dashelle Gleissner with 10 points, only one Irish girl was in double-figures and that was senior wing Gianna Silvestri with 14 points. Irish senior forward Rainah Smith added eight points and a game-high 12 rebounds.
For Serra its right back to preparing for next season and re-igniting the Del Rey League rivalry with Bishop Montgomery of Torrance. The Cavaliers were 1-2 against Bishop Montgomery with the teams splitting a pair of overtime games and Serra losing by 19 at home in league. The 71-68 overtime loss that came in the CIF Southern Section Open Division Consolation game cost the Cavaliers the top seed in the D1 SoCal Regionals to the Knights, but obviously not a state championship.
“Right now we don’t consider it much of a rivalry because we lost the last two games,” was Hadley’s answer when asked if a rivalry with Bishop Montgomery helped fuel the D1 state playoff run. “We embraced the No. 2 seed but it did instill in us a hunger and we decided it was about us, and since that last loss to them we haven’t had a single digit win. Now that the season has concluded we can reignite that rivalry.”
A rivalry is a rivalry but what really counts is a state championship, and Hadley and his girls have that in hand as they head back to Gardena.
