SAN JOSE — After six years of losses in the CCS Open Division championship game, with the last five coming against Mitty, the Pinewood girls basketball team finally had its moment on Friday afternoon.
Annika Decker’s and-1 with 13.3 seconds left proved to be the winning basket in a 50-48 victory as the host Monarchs missed three shots in the final seconds, giving Pinewood (17-0) an elusive section title and allowing the Panthers to finish their season with a perfect record.
“This is a state championship,” Pinewood head coach Doc Scheppler said. “This is the game where the season’s over. When these are the stakes, and this is it, you want to win your last game, and the feeling after you win your last game, you can put a coat hanger in your mouth, you can’t stop smiling. This is the greatest feeling.”
For much of the day, it looked like Mitty (13-2) would claim a sixth straight crown, opening up a 41-29 lead with two minutes left in the third quarter on the heels of a 14-4 run. Still, Pinewood wouldn’t go away.
The Panthers finished the third on a modest 6-2 run of their own that Chance Bucher started with a 3-pointer, and they pulled to within a single point early in the fourth on a Courtni Thompson three as they got the first seven points of the final quarter.
“It was just a matter of staying composed and poised as a team,” Thompson said.
That composure was quickly displayed again as Noemie Bariteau’s third 3-pointer of the game put the top-seeded Monarchs up 47-42, a momentum shift that could have spelled the end for Pinewood. Instead, Thompson came right back down the floor and sank another three, reducing the deficit to two once again. A minute later, the Panthers tied it on a Maia Garcia putback.
“We had to continue to crash hard and keep our will up,” said Garcia, a 6-foot-3 center headed to Cal Poly. “I’m really proud of everyone for boxing out and staying resilient.”
After allowing 14 offensive rebounds in the first half, including six by UC San Diego commit Katie Springs, and nine more during the third quarter, Garcia and the rest of the second-seeded Panthers tightened up on the glass.
The Monarchs only had one offensive rebound in the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter, and though they got two in a frantic final sequence, they mustered just a single point off of the extra chances. In fact, Mitty went scoreless from the floor in the final five-and-a-half minutes, only scoring when Sydney Bourland made the second of two free throws with 35.8 left to give the hosts a 48-47 lead.
Between Garcia’s putback and Bourland’s free throw, the teams combined to miss 11 would-be go-ahead baskets, with the last of the 11 being rebounded by Amelia Scharpf. Bourland was fouled after a timeout, and she made just one of her two foul shots on a day where Mitty went 2-for-10 at the line.
After the Monarchs gave the two fouls they had to spare, Pinewood ran the clock down before Decker slashed through the paint for her lone basket of the day, drawing contact in the process. The ensuing free throw served as the final score.
“Our coaches always tell me that one of the best options is to just attack. I went to the basket and saw the lane,” Decker said. “The play was breaking down and the shot clock was running down.”
The Monarchs still had three quality chances to tie, with the last coming after the referees generously placed 1.5 seconds back on the clock after a held ball.
“That was brutal. That buzzer went off right after the whistle,” Scheppler said. “If it’s anything, it’s 0.5.”
Even with Mitty getting a final opportunity, it was still Pinewood’s day. The shot from near the free-throw line clanked off the front of the rim, setting off a celebration that had been in the making for years and lasted well beyond the confines of the gym, with a lengthy postgame discussion that featured words from former Panthers star Hannah Jump, now a national champion at Stanford.
“The entire Pinewood program is amazing like that,” Thompson said. “It’s super tight-knit.”
While most of the Pinewood roster was familiar with facing Mitty, one of the Panthers’ key offensive contributors was battling the Monarchs for the first time. Elle Ladine, who had transferred from Lowell after her sophomore season, scored 11, fueled by a trio of first-half threes.
The last of those shots, set up by a Thompson offensive rebound and slick pass from Decker, cut the lead to two, and the Panthers would tie things up at 23 just shy of the half off an Una Jovanovic coast-to-coast drive and Garcia layup. Fittingly, the hosts went into the half with a two-point lead after another putback, this time coming from UC Irvine commit Olivia Williams.
“Mitty kills you not with their offensive sets, but with their putbacks and their post-up game,” Scheppler explained. “They seek a matchup that they can exploit. I thought our post defense was great in the second half.”
True to his word, the Monarchs mustered just five second-chance points in the final two quarters after racking up 11 in the first half. Garcia grabbed nine rebounds to go with her 13 points, leading Pinewood in both categories, and Jovanovic had eight boards while scoring seven.
Thompson matched Ladine with 11 points, while Bourland led Mitty with 13. Springs, wearing a brace on her knee, scored just two but finished with 11 rebounds. Bariteau was similarly valuable off the bench, scoring 12.
While the Monarchs were short on personnel, with Hunter Hernandez limited after suffering a knee in Wednesday’s semifinal win and Marley Langi with elderly relatives, they had no shortage of talent. Five of their nine players who saw time in Friday’s game will be back next season, though an excellent group of seniors saw their careers come to a close with a loss.
“Our seniors have had an incredible run for us with three Open Division championships, a NorCal title, undefeated in WCAL play,” Mitty head coach Sue Phillips said. “I’m just really trying to encourage them to see their full body of work.”
On the other side of the gym, Pinewood’s five seniors closed their career in the finest fashion possible, finally getting over the hump against a Mitty team that’s not only been a dominant team within the Bay Area, but a national power.
“It was a subtle preparation for Mitty for about a week and a half,” Scheppler said. “The girls didn’t know it, but we worked on handling traps, scattered floor situations, advantage-disadvantage. That’s what we looked to develop.”
