Witt, Notre Dame get win over Chaminade
Notre Dame girls basketball shook up the Mission League standings and is now on a three-game win streak after beating Chaminade 6454 on Thursday evening.
The two-game series is split between the two, and Notre Dame moves into a tie for third place in the Mission League with HarvardWestlake.
“Going into the season I believed we can finish top three in league,” head coach Jena Laolagi said. “And at the beginning, the girls didn't think it was attainable. After we sat down and watched film (of the loss to Chaminade), they all said to me, we can do this, we can beat them.”
Amia Witt scored 23 points and pulled down 16 rebounds for Notre Dame (14-8 overall, 3-3 in Mission League) and made seven of nine free throws in the fourth quarter, while Natalie Villamor chipped in 12 points, seven rebounds and three assists. Payton Montgomery
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led Chaminade (138, 4-2) with 23 points.
Chaminade gained an edge by one point with five minutes left in the first quarter when Payton Montgomery made a layup, but Natalie Villamor sank a 3-pointer 15 seconds later to give Notre Dame a 10-6 advantage that it continued to build on.
The Knights withstood a run from the Eagles with less than two minutes remaining to end the quarter with a 19-13 lead.
Notre Dame continued to find openings that allowed it to let the 3-point shots fly. Villamor hit three 3's in the first quarter and another in the second half, but the percentage from range decreased as time went on. The Knights began to work inside-out and held a 38-36 advantage at halftime.
Alyssa Saldana grabbed a steal and passed the ball to Natalie Patrick-Aguilar with 3:28 left in the third quarter for a layup that helped Chaminade cut the point deficit to 10 points. The Eagles made 5 of 8 shots to bring the score to 50-43 in
Notre Dame's favor heading into the final quarter.
“We picked up our intensity halfway through the third quarter,” Chaminade coach Jason Ancrum said. “Our team is still learning how to play together and how to deal with success. It's like, we can go on a big run and then, `Oh we made it back. OK, let's take our foot off the gas.'”
Chaminade nearly caught up and was trailing 53-50 with four minutes remaining in the game, but couldn't fully leverage its size advantage to keep Notre Dame away from the hoop. Amia Witt knocked down two free throws and made a layup within 30 seconds to extend Notre Dame's lead further.
Notre Dame has become increasingly dialed in as the season has gone on, as the focus shifts to attaining one of the Mission League's three automatic playoff spots with four league games left in the season.
The Knights are practicing three times a week and have 6 a.m. shootarounds with film in addition to two games.