SACRAMENTO – None of Zoe Lemoge’s shots were easy at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento on Saturday morning.
The Half Moon Bay junior used every skill, trick and move in her vast low-block repertoire to carve out space against Whitney-Cerritos and score a game-high 18 points in the CIF girls Division IV title game.
But her artful post moves weren’t enough to put Half Moon Bay over the top after the team fell into a 10-point hole to start the game.
Whitney held off several comeback attempts and handed Half Moon Bay a 48-40 loss.
“This was definitely not common, and usually, I feel like we start off stronger than we did today,” Delaney Dorwin said.
Dorwin scored 10 for HMB, and teammate Xochitl Nieves dropped in 12 points on a variety of smooth jump shots. Haylie Wang scored 17 points for Whitney, and Alyssa So scored 15 for the SoCal school.
Saturday marked the end to what had been quite a journey by Half Moon Bay to its first state title game.
The Cougars were selected as an at-large team after losing to Harker in the semifinals of the Central Coast Section Division IV playoffs.
The Peninsula school, which has been a consistently successful program for the past decade, made the most of its second chance at life.
“It’s been amazing,” Lemoge said after also grabbing 18 rebounds. “Through it all, we were sticking together.”
Half Moon Bay needed a dramatic finish to advance past Lowell-San Francisco in the NorCal Division IV final, as Dorwin’s basket with nine seconds left broke a tie and lifted the coastal school to a 49-47 victory.
But against Whitney, the Cougars just didn’t have enough juice to come back after falling behind 10-0 to start the game.
“We got some really good looks, probably looks that most of these players would make more of if given the opportunity again,” HMB coach Megan Smith said. “That’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.”
The Cougars ended the first quarter down 16-9, but an and-1 step-through post layup by Lemoge and two free throws by Dorwin cut the deficit to just two.
However, as Whitney did every time HMB threatened, the Cerritos school went on a run to get the lead back to six or eight.
In a physical game where neither team had a player score off the bench, Whitney relished the challenge of banging with Half Moon Bay.
“Half Moon Bay is a good team, and they’re actually bigger than us,” Whitney coach Myron Jacobs said. “We’re not the biggest team, but we played with a lot of heart, and we played fast and with discipline.”
Half Moon Bay got back to 36-31 on a Lemoge putback early in the third, but Whitney answered with baskets of their own.
Fighting through contact, Lemoge made two layups and nailed a free throw to get it down to 43-40 with 3:40 left in the fourth quarter.
The game was there for the Half Moon Bay’s taking, but Whitney took it back.
So made three free throws and Wang converted a layup. Sarai Carter led a defense that allowed just three HMB players to score.
When reflecting upon the season Half Moon Bay (23-7) had just completed, Smith expressed pride in her team, not sorrow, after the Cougars became the first public school in the Central Coast Section to reach a state title game since Monta Vista in 1992.
“It’s a testament to how hard we’ve worked this year, and what this team is capable of, and I’m just really excited for the future,” Smith said.
