Rialto rallies, earns crown

HUNTINGTON BEACH >> Rialto girls basketball coach Robert Goodloe considers himself a man of unwavering faith, so trailing by double digits didn’t affect him or his team.

The No. 2-seeded Knights erased a 12-point halftime deficit and won their first CIF-SS championship since 2011 by defeating Buena Park 46-44 in the Division 4AA final Saturday at Edison High.

“We give all our due diligence to the good Lord, I truly mean that, and I put that in these kids’ minds and that’s why we’re here today,” Goodloe said.

Rialto (28-2) was led by Carrington Davis, who had a game-high 27 points and 15 rebounds, and center Khamiyah Anderson, who finished with 11 points and 14 rebounds.

After Rialto had trailed for the majority of the game, Davis was fouled by Chantyl Perry with 1:04 remaining. After the foul call Perry was also assessed a technical foul.

Davis made two technical free throws, then one of two foul shots for the original shooting foul and the Knights retained possession and led 4442, their first advantage of the game.

Buena Park (24-7), the top seed in the division, jumped out to a 19-9 lead after the first quarter behind Sydnie Lendsey, Alana White and Melia Hinojos. White had a teamhigh 20 points and 14 rebounds with five blocks while Lendsey scored nine of her 15 points in the opening quarter.

But the momentum began to shift in the third quarter as the Knights went on a 10-2 run to pull within four points entering the fourth.

Goodloe praised his team for staying composed and chipping away at the second-half lead of the Coyotes.

“For me, I’m ex-military. I just learned to never panic,” he said, “because I know when you panic you lose wars, so my whole thing is I can deal with a battle. It was a battle at the beginning of the game but our object was to win the war.”