What a finish!

Bryce Alderton

Whew, what a ride.

In an improbable five-game stretch through the Southern California

Regional Playoffs and the eventual State Tournament, Orange Coast

College’s women’s basketball team erased all doubts, all

reservations, all skeptics, about whether it had what it takes to be

a champion.

It wasn’t enough that the Bucs (30-7) knocked off Ventura -- the

South’s top seed and three-time defending state champion -- for the

second time this season in the state tournament semifinal Saturday.

The Pirates had to continue their success against No. 1 seeds that

came their way in the tournament, downing the North’s No. 1 seed --

Contra Costa -- 69-61, Sunday for the championship, the first in

school history.

“I’m still thinking about it,” said sophomore point guard Nancy

Hatsushi, the tournament MVP, who drained a team-high 20 points in

the final against Contra Costa. “It’s all kind of crazy, a dream come

true. This is the first time I’ve ever reached the top. The chances

were slim for us going in, but we knew that if we played as hard as

we could, we had the potential to do it.”

Coach Mike Thornton remained steadfast in that belief and his

players accepted the mantra, which seemingly secured their drive to

the top in California.

“Everyone contributes something different to our team,” said

sophomore Lindsey Galasso, who led the Bucs with 17 points in the semifinal win over Ventura, and followed up with eight points and

five assists in the title game. “I think a lot of people thought

after we beat Ventura, we could beat Contra Costa. We then proved to

people we could do this. Throughout the playoffs (Thornton) told us

we have a special team and we haven’t played our perfect game yet.

That gave us inspiration to want to play hard and win.”

Both Galasso and Hatsushi said the Ventura game was tougher than

the Contra Costa contest, but that didn’t stop certain Bucs from

stepping up.

“I give Candice (Quiroz) all the credit, she stepped up her

defense when Liz (Mendoza) went down,” said Hatsushi about Quiroz, a

sophomore who was given the task of guarding Ventura’s Courtney

Young, the State’s Co-Player of the Year. Mendoza went down with an

ankle injury that caused her to miss six minutes. Young finished with

18 points on 7-of-17 shooting from the field. Mendoza averaged 13.1

points to lead the Bucs this season.

Thornton also praised Quiroz’s work ethic against Young.

“She was the unsung hero against Ventura,” he said.

Quiroz filling in for Mendoza typifies Coast. If one player goes

down or is having an off-night, a teammate filled in reliably, making

the Pirates unpredictable, but hardly inconsistent in the latter

stages of the season.

For the final three games, Coast players wore blue uniforms, which

they only donned in victories against Bakersfield and Ventura in the

regular season prior to the State Tournament. Now they are 5-0 in the

jerseys Thornton hopes will be given to the players as souvenirs or

as part of a Hall of Fame display.

“We needed 100 things to go right for us to win the tournament,”

Thornton said. “Almost all 100 of those went right.”

It wasn’t always this smooth

Sitting in the bleachers before the Estancia High girls basketball

team’s second-round home game in the CIF Southern Section Division

III-A Playoffs in late February, Thornton wondered what the fate of

this Coast team would be.

OCC had lost its last two games of the regular season -- a 55-44

verdict to Saddleback, the OEC champions, and a 52-49 decision to

Fullerton in a game Thornton said was the team’s worst of the season.

He said Coast was inconsistent, seeking its identity, while

battling fatigue from the rigors of conference action.

As it turns out, a 12-day respite was just what Coast needed,

Thornton said a week later. OCC received a first-round bye and was

guaranteed a second-round home game. Thornton couldn’t have been

happier.

We really wanted to get that No. 4 seed, to play at home and that

was a confidence boost for us, said Thornton, who completed his 14th

year with the program. The San Clemente resident is 319-145 (.687

winning percentage) in 14 years at OCC. Gregg Savage, formerly coach

at Newport Harbor High, finished his third season an assistant.

Coast responded in fashion, knocking off Cerritos, 55-47. Cerritos

had defeated Coast by 20 the fifth game of the season.

The win also guaranteed Coast another game in Peterson Gym for the

Southern Regional championship and a berth in the State Tournament

against Compton (31-1).

A shot with three seconds left knocked Coast out of the regional

final a year ago, and the sophomores repeatedly mentioned that game

as motivation and a building block for this season.

But fate would be on Coast’s side against Compton and the entire

playoff run. Freshman Alisa Carrillo hit two free throws with 18

seconds left and tallied a game-high 21 points. But Coast would have

to make a defensive stop in the final 11 seconds. Compton’s Nicole

Hunter threw up a 22-footer that was short and sophomore Lauren

Murray grabbed one of her eight rebounds to end the game.

“We met every challenge as a team,” Thornton said. “We had as

tough a road as anybody. Our confidence never wavered. We went with

the idea, ‘Why not us?’ Our kids have a lot of confidence and they

believed they could beat anybody.”

The Pirates’ confidence could have waned with two games against

the Saddleback Gauchos, who went undefeated (14-0), to win the OEC.

The Gauchos handed the Pirates their worst loss of the season -- a

74-45 decision Jan. 24. Hazel Woods (first team) and Clara Inglehart

(second team) made the all-state team, but the Gauchos -- seeded

first in the Southern California region -- fell to Mt. San Antonio in

the regional final.

OCC had lost to Contra Costa, 69-63, in the final of the Ventura

Tournament Dec. 1.

Stepping up

OCC’s average margin of victory was six points in five tournament

games, winning twice by eight and once by two.

Carrillo, along with freshmen Amy Shaw and Kirsten Von Tungeln,

gave Thornton a glimpse of what to expect next year with solid

minutes in the championship run and throughout the season.

It was Shaw’s three that sent Coast on a 7-0 run to build its

25-16 halftime lead over Ventura in the semifinal. Von Tungeln

tallied one point and Carrillo three in that game.

But it was Carrillo that saved her best for last, tallying 19

points and five rebounds to lead Coast in the championship game.

Quiroz and Shaw scored seven and three points, respectively, in the

game, and Murray added four points to go with six rebounds.

It also helped that Coast shot almost 83% (19 of 23) from the

free-throw line in the title game, led by Galasso’s 5-of-6 mark. OCC

went to the line 33 times and made 24 shots (72.7%) against Ventura.

“It was just 100% determination and hard work,” said Galasso about

Coast’s unyielding work ethic, finding a way to win when it mattered

most.

“We practiced hard each day and that is why we got better,”

Thornton said. “We don’t have a tremendous athletic team, but we have

good kids who never complain and never show an attitude and it makes

me feel good to win with a team like that.”

Winning was something Coast did for 15 straight games earlier this

season, falling just shy of the 18-game school record.

Coast’s balance was evident in its leading scorers. Carrillo and

Mendoza each paced the Pirates in 14 games while Hatsushi and Galasso

led in five and three, respectively.

Hatsushi, the former Costa Mesa High four-year starter who holds

the school record with 675 assists, chalked up a team-leading 175

this season en route to her place on the All-Southern California and

Orange Empire Conference first-team selections. Hatsushi is

considering Adams State in Colorado and Concordia University in

Irvine for her future. Mendoza and Galasso were also named first-team

all-conference this season, a year that Thornton, nor any Coast

player, will soon forget.

Sophomore guard Leigh Marshall, who Thornton often praised as a

team leader, also played at Costa Mesa High. Freshmen Jessica

Estrada, Laura Garnica, and Celeste Haueter give Thornton added

firepower for next season.

Coast made it to the state semifinals once before, in 1994, and

never to the final. This year marks the fourth time in nine seasons

that Coast has reached the state tournament.

At the beginning of the week, Thornton said he had about 50 phone

messages left between his home in San Clemente and office at Marina

High in Huntington Beach where he teaches. Most were from

well-wishers congratulating him on the championship.

“I was just talking to a coach from the Antelope Valley and he

said, ‘Call me when you get off Cloud 9,’” Thornton said. “I told him

I’ll probably call him in July. This is the greatest win I’ve ever

had.”