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Sports

JSerra's Girls Eliminated From Basketball Playoffs With Loss to St. Anthony

Second-seeded Saints from Long Beach control the boards and ride two runs in the third quarter to 78-63 victory over Lions in semifinals of CIF Division 4A playoffs.

For 16 minutes, JSerra was every bit as good as St. Anthony in Saturday’s CIF Southern Section Division 4A girls basketball semifinal playoff game.

But once St. Anthony's running game got into gear, once the offensive rebounds and putbacks began to bank off the backboard and into the basket, and once the Saints began to take advantage of their considerable height advantage, it was all over.

Second-seeded St. Anthony held off a feisty third-seeded Lions team that never gave up, winning 78-63 at St. Margaret’s Episcopal School.

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The Saints led at halftime, 32-27, despite only 11-of-56 shooting from the field. JSerra also struggled from the field, making only six of 25 attempts but fared better from the free-throw line (14 of 18). St. Anthony outrebounded the Lions, 35-13, for the game.

St. Anthony (18-8) will play top-seeded Oaks Christian (24-7) at the Anaheim Convention center on a date and time to be announced by the section office Monday. In its semifinal, Oaks Christian beat fourth-seeded Cerritos Valley Christian, 54-49.

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“I think the biggest thing is they’re competitive and they’ve played against some great teams, like Mater Dei, Orange Lutheran and Santa Margarita,” St. Anthony coach James Anderson said of JSerra. “So, I think it prepares us, confidence-wise. Knowing we can beat a school with a bigger enrollment is huge.”

St. Anthony has an enrollment of roughly 400 students; JSerra has 915.

The season isn't over for the Lions (12-18), however, as every boys and girls basketball team that advanced to the section semifinals also has qualified for the CIF Southern California Regionals, which begin March 8. Last year, St. Anthony reached the state Division 5 championship game, where the Saints lost to Pinewood.

“To build on last year, to be able to go to state last year, to have a chance to play for another championship ... we’re on the right track," Anderson said. "We at least want to compete for one every year.”

Kendall Cooper, St. Anthony's 6-foot-3 center, was an absolute force inside Saturday. The sophomore scored 25 points to go with 15 rebounds and four blocked shots.

The Lions' defense swarmed Cooper in the first half. And in the first quarter, the Saints made only three of 33 shots from the field.

“We knew we had to defend the high post and the low post,” JSerra coach Mary Rossignol said. “We had to rebound. We threw out a bunch of junk defenses and I think we had them stifled for a little bit, but we needed to play a perfect game. They’re great.”

St. Anthony's transition game showed up immediately to start the second half, when the Saints went on a 9-2 run to take a 41-29 lead.

“We were trying to get them running,” Rossignol said. “I thought we would have a better chance to rebound the basketball and get them out of the half-court offense.

"But I’m really proud of the kids. They’ve come a long way. They’re so young and they have so much heart and desire. The kids want to play [in the regionals]. They believe in each other, they trust in each other.”

It appeared JSerra was relying too much on August Touchard, who took several threes and jump shots instead of working the ball around to teammates like junior guard Samara Hanna, who scored 19 points, or junior guard Jenna Morris, who scored 17  in a second-round victory over Lakewood St. Joseph.

“We tried to take their bigs away from the basket all night,” Rossignol said. “We ran pick-and-rolls. We just thought it would give us a chance to penetrate and dish for shots, and give us a chance for our guards to go one-on-one with their guards. I thought our guards were better than theirs.”

The Lions finished 18 of 60 from the field and 22 of 30 from the free-throw line.

Cooper found her way in the second half. Thanks to dribble penetration and transition play by junior point guard Raquel Johnson and senior forward Jourdan Cooper, Cooper either had easy layups or grabbed offensive rebounds for straight-up putbacks from less than five feet away.

“We saw that there were a lot of mismatches,” Cooper said. “In the first half, we played to adjust to what they were doing. They would double-team our taller post player, so we’d go straight to our shorter post player.”

Cooper was a backup on the varsity team that lost in the state finals last season. She, along with six other returning players, are looking to win the title this time around.

“We have to use our size and speed and height,” Cooper said. “But we need to use our height, where we [normally] have an advantage.”

JSerra drew as close as 43-34 on two free throws by Touchard, who had a team-high 21 points on 4-of-24 shooting from the field and 11-of-13 shooting from the free-throw line.

But an 8-0 run by St. Anthony, including two putbacks by Natalie Williams, extended its lead to 51-34. Every time the Lions got as close as 14, the Saints would answer with a steal and a score or grab defensive rebounds.

“The key thing in the game was rebounding," Hanna said. "They’re the bigger team, so we had to push them out. Sometimes they’d go over you.”

Midway through the second quarter, JSerra forward Whitney Braeutigam left the game with a knee injury, but she returned to play the majority of the second half, scoring 12 points.

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