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Tesoro Titans after winning the CIF title Saturday night at Edison. (PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone)
A CIF title wasn’t exactly on the minds of the Tesoro girls basketball players going into the season after the Titans finished 4-23 overall last season.
But the players put in the hard work, kept believing and achieved that accomplishment Saturday night, defeating Serra 59-46 in the CIF 4AA title game Saturday at Edison.
To see additional photos, click on the first picture:
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The Titans (23-11) accomplished the program’s first CIF title by sticking to the game plan.
“Credit to our team because we came in with a game plan, we had talked about how important it was to be able to play really good man defense,” said Coach Ra Reyes. “We knew this team was well coached and they were going to be very good drivers and were going to challenge us on the dribble, we worked on it in practice, the girls really committed to the game plan and we also knew that (Mariyah) Lewis was a really strong presence on the inside.
“So, we worked on doubling her from the weakside and the kids committed to it and that’s what’s gotten us here is this commitment from top to bottom, every single kid has been willing to put the work in and do the little extra things to get us to this moment. This is the biggest game I’ve been in and it is for the girls as well, we talked about that and we said we couldn’t let the moment get bigger than us and we all did that.”
Tesoro led 13-11 after one quarter, then used a 13-0 run in the second quarter to move out to a 36-19 halftime lead. But Serra got back in the game, cutting the lead to 44-37 going into the final stanza.
Jade McMahon hit a 3-point field goal for the Titans with 5:33 remaining to push the lead to 53-41 and Tesoro led by a comfortable margin the rest of the way.
Caiitlyn Tse led Tesoro with 18 points McMahon had 17 points and 15 rebounds. Tesoro’s Charlotte Marvin was a force with 19 rebounds. Tesoro held the rebounding edge 52-45.
The celebration on the court was memorable for the players.
“I think of lot of it was individual work,” McMahon said. “We started with a completely new team last year, all of our seniors left, so it was kind of trying to transition over to the new players. We worked on our team chemistry, and a lot of it goes to my teammates, I really appreciate the effort they put in and the commitment that everyone has had and it’s really made a difference for us.”
But the Titans weren’t thinking too much about a CIF title.
“I don’t think any of us would think we would make a CIF champion,” McMahon said. “We scheduled our banquet before the season ended so I think it was probably the last thing we expected.”
Kaicia Snelson led Serra (18-13) with 21 points and five rebounds. Lewis added 11 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Both teams are headed to the CIF Regionals next week.
—-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com