SANTA CLARA – Archbishop Mitty called a timeout with two minutes remaining in a close Central Coast Section Open Division girls basketball title game, its once 23-point lead having evaporated to just six after Pinewood guard Vallory Kuelker dropped in a 3-pointer.
The Monarchs desperately needed a spark … and they found it in sophomore guard Tee McCarthy.
She slalomed into the lane for a nifty mid-range jumper on the first play out of the break, causing Pinewood coach Doc Scheppler to call a timeout of his own.
She then proceeded to score six more points in the final 100 seconds to help keep Pinewood at bay.
“I was not nervous at all,” said McCarthy, who scored 16 points. “In practice, we work hard so in that moment, we can execute.”
When the final buzzer sounded and signaled the end of Mitty’s wild 59-51 victory, McCarthy and her teammates lifted the program’s 10th Open Division title and 33rd section championship trophy overall.
“It just feels amazing to celebrate these moments with my teammates,” McCarthy said.
Despite battling illness, Mitty’s Hall of Fame coach, Sue Phillips, couldn’t help but smile when talking about her team’s resilience en route to yet another CCS crown.
“CCS champs, it never gets old,” Phillips said.
On the other side of the court was Pinewood’s renowned Scheppler, who had seen his team scrap its way back from a 27-7 first-quarter deficit. Mitty’s Ze’Ni Patterson scored 14 of her game-high 17 points in the frame.
It was also a run in which Scheppler did not call a timeout until his Panthers were down 18-3.
“We needed to save our timeouts for the end, and I let them get away,” Scheppler said. “It was too much, and I should’ve have called timeout earlier.”
Being down big to Mitty was not a new frontier for Pinewood.
Mitty had faced Pinewood eight times before in the Open final, all in a row between 2015-23, until St. Ignatius snapped the streak last season.
The Monarchs have dominated the series, with Pinewood’s only victory being a 50-48 victory in 2021. To the Panthers’ credit, they also earned an epic triple-overtime win over Mitty in the 2018 NorCal Open Division final as well.
Another game like that looked impossible, even given Mitty’s high-profile absence in forward McKenna Woliczko.
Phillips’ San Jose powerhouse began the season looking like – and being ranked as – the best team in the nation.
That all changed when junior superstar forward and two-time Bay Area News Group player of the year McKenna Woliczko tore her right ACL in an early-January game against SoCal power Ontario Christian.
Any thought that Pinewood would be able to take advantage of her absence – Woliczko cheered on her teammates while wearing a knee brace from the bench – was seemingly dashed early as Mitty showed off their new-look athleticism.
“We’re athletic, incredibly athletic, and we can defend fairly well when we need to,” Phillip said.
Phillips thought that her team took its foot off the gas in the second quarter, and it showed when Pinewood outscored the Monarchs 12-10 over those eight minutes and then 14-10 in the third quarter.
“I think that when we jumped out to a 27-7 lead, I think the kids thought it was going to be that easy, and it wasn’t,” Phillips said. “So there was a little bit of a slippery slope with how we attacked the basket, got on the glass. We knew they were going to fight back, and then we just really pressed offensively.”
The lead grew to 32-9 before Pinewood composed itself.
Jolyn Ding and Kuelker combined for 31 points and fueled the Panthers’ 9-2 run to begin the fourth period.
“It took a while to settle in, and the first quarter was the difference in the game, but once we started to see some shots go in, that translated,” Ding said.
By the time Kuelker made her time-out inducing triple, she couldn’t help but let out a fierce scream as Pinewood (23-4) almost came all the way back. The Panthers outscored Mitty 44-32 over the final three quarters.
“That’s an example of the grit of Pinewood,” Scheppler said.
But it turned out to be too big of a mountain to climb. Every time Pinewood would score, McCarthy answered with a bucket or free throws to clinch the program’s fourth consecutive Open title.
Up next for both teams is regional play, where Mitty – and likely Pinewood – will be placed in the NorCal Open bracket.
Phillips made it no secret that she believed her Monarchs (25-3) should be seeded No. 1.
“I mean, three signature wins in the Top 25 in the country, and the only three losses are to Ontario Christian, Sidwell Friends and Morris Catholic, all top 10 teams in the country,” Phillips said. “I’m not sure anyone else in the field has those three wins.”
