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The Los Alamitos girls JV basketball team had its second strong tournament showing in two weeks, as the Griffins finished in second place last weekend at the Ocean View Winter Classic, losing a hotly contested championship game to Cypress, 42-45, on a lucky last-minute, bank-shot three-pointer.
The Griffins (11-5) battled back from a miserable 0-12 start in the Saturday, December 21 game, and finished the first quarter down only 6-12. Losing ground in the second quarter they finished the first half behind 18-27, but in the third quarter, an aggressive full-court press fueled a spirited 15-5 comeback as Los Alamitos entered the final quarter up by one point, 33-32.
The seesaw final frame saw a couple of lead changes, and the game was tied 42-42 with about a minute left when a Cypress guard from the right wing shot too long and slightly right –off just enough to luckily bank in the final basket.
“The girls played hard enough to win,” said Coach Patrick Kennedy. “But that’s just the way the ball bounces sometimes. Of course, it helps not to get down 12-0 in the first three minutes of the game, but the way the girls kept battling back was very impressive.”
Griffins sophomore guard Remy Hoang scored a game-high 15 points, including 5 in the fourth quarter. Freshman forward Maryah Collier chipped in 9 points, and freshman point guard Mio Emi added 6 points.
For the four-game tournament, Hoang averaged 10.3 points a game, sophomore guard Ashley Matsumoto averaged 7.5 points, and sophomore wing Danira Jones averaged 6.8 points.
Jones also led the team in rebounding, grabbing 7.5 boards per game, followed by junior forward Morgan Oropeza with 6 rebounds a game.
To reach the championship game, the Griffins earlier had defeated Kennedy, 49-17, Ocean View, 55-5, and Villa Park, 41-21.
This is the third strong tournament for the Griffins, who on December 14 won the championship of the Annual Millikan High School JV Tournament and in late November finished third in the El Toro Thanksgiving Classic.
In these recent back-to-back tournaments, including the Saturday final, the Griffins played 8 games in only 13 days, including two stretches of three games in a row; they finished that gauntlet 6-2. The next game is the Sunset League season opener on January 3 at 6:30 p.m. at Edison High.
