DANVILLE, Calif. – Tuesday night’s NCS girls Division I semifinal between No. 4 seeded San Leandro and top seed Monte Vista featured two offenses struggling to find a rhythm, lots of scrambling for loose balls, and two leading players who fought tooth and nail to push their respective teams for a chance to nab a championship trophy. Monte Vista led for virtually the entire contest, and after a late run finished off the Pirates, 49-45.
“We just didn’t ever really get our stride back the whole game,” Monte Vista head coach Steve Cornell remarked. “They were going to be slowing it down on their end…and minimizing our possessions. We just never got a separation. But the seniors late took care of the business and we’re moving on to the championship game.”
Nia Coleman had 19 points and 12 rebounds, and Rachel Brans had three three-pointers and scored 14 points for Monte Vista (23-6). Coleman, who has surpassed 1,000 career points for the Mustangs, had 10 points in the fourth quarter alone, when Monte Vista made a critical run. Bella Torrance hit a three-pointer, her only bucket of the game, with less than a minute gone in the fourth quarter to close the deficit to one. The Mustangs responded with an 8-0 run and held on after that. A three-pointer by Lisette Lopez came at the buzzer to make the game a little closer than the score indicates.
“We kind of have the ball go through me so I have to remember that if I’m hot, I get my teammates hot,” Coleman said.
For San Leandro (20-9), senior guard Geriah Bradley capped a terrific season with a solid outing of 20 points, five rebounds, four assists, and six steals. Bradley leads the Pirates in every major statistical category. No other Pirates had double figure scoring, and of note starter Rebeca Galindo Gallo was out due to illness.
“The interesting part about it was that we graduated 85-percent of our offense and rebounds from last year, and people didn’t think we were going to be very good,” San Leandro coach Dennis Flannery stated. “You can measure how high somebody jumps, you can time how quick somebody runs, but you can’t measure people’s hearts. To think that we ended up in exactly the same place, in the semifinals of the North Coast Section Division I, I’m so proud of this team.”
For Coleman and Bradley, it was more than just two exceptional players squaring off. “I played her from my childhood,” Coleman added. “She’s really aggressive and fast and strong. So, it was just fun to play against someone who’s like me.”
Monte Vista now moves to face No. 7 seed Granada, which defeated James Logan 61-41. The Matadors had ousted No. 2 seed California in the quarterfinals. In regular season head-to-head matches between the two finalists, Monte Vista had 59-45 and 65-64 victories.
“I didn’t see this coming, but the players are the ones that make this happen,” Cornell said about the season as a whole. “I just try to get them all together and get them in their spots to try to succeed. We made enough of the plays tonight to get us over the hump.”
