Sierra Canyon 62, Hesperia Christian 36
Southern Section Girls Playoff Coverage
Jack Pollon
March 7, 2009
As far as championship games go, it wasn’t much of one.
Sierra Canyon of Chatsworth won its first championship in any sport in school history in a dominating 62-36 Division VI-AA girls basketball victory against Hesperia Christian Saturday morning at Mater Dei of Santa Ana.
“This is redemption for last year,” Sierra Canyon guard Brenda Kramer said, referring to last years Div. V-A loss to Crossroads of Santa Monica at The Pyramid in Long Beach.
“We knew we would do it. This was our year. Being a senior this is so remarkable. We all worked so hard in the offseason.”
Kramer got the Trailblazers going early, hitting back to back 3-pointers to end the first quarter and start the second quarter.
Sierra Canyon (23-4) led 14-2 at that point and never looked back as Hesperia Christian didn’t score in the games first seven minutes and made only five of 25 shots from the field in the first half.
Hesperia Christian actually outrebounded the Trailblazers 30-14 in the first half and 51-40 for the game but that was because they couldn’t make a shot.
“Just being here in this atmosphere felt like a championship game,” Kramer said. “Any team on any given day can win and comeback so we just played hard till the end and never let up.”
Sierra Canyon led 30-11 at halftime and then scored the first 18 points of the third quarter to go ahead by 37 points.
Sophomore Jasmine Sneed scored 16 points and 10 steals to lead Sierra Canyon and Kramer had 12 points.
Hesperia Christian, the No. 2 seed and champion of the Agape League were on the brink of setting a record for least amount of points scored in a championship game but scored more points in the fourth quarter (19) than they had in the first three quarters combined (17).
Lauren Miller had 16 points including 11 in the final eight minutes to lead the Patriots (22-5).
Katie McGrath added eight points and 15 rebounds but the Patriots only made 14 of 56 field goal attempts and were three of 13 from the free throw line. Sierra Canyon could be a fixture in the finals for years to come as Sneed, Kelly Schneider and Tori Wells all have two years left and Kiah Jones, Toni Oni and Isabelle Lozano are all freshman.
“Yeah, there might be some pressure to win it every year now,” Sierra Canyon coach T.J. Knox said.
Sierra Canyon advances to the Div. V state tournament next week. Regional pairings will be released this afternoon at www.cifstate.org by 3 p.m.