Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Foothill stuns Liberty in Sunrise girls final.
Junior’s hot hand late brings down Patriots; Falcons claim Sunrise
Liberty’s girls basketball program has reigned atop the Sunrise Region the past four years.
Rae Burrell helped Foothill bring down the dynasty Saturday.
Burrell, a junior, scored 11 of Foothill’s final 14 points to lead the Falcons to a come-from-behind 5552 victory over Liberty in the Class 4A Sunrise Region championship at Canyon Springs.
The Falcons (19-8) lost to Liberty in the region title game each of the past three years.
Liberty (30-2) will face Spring Valley (18-12) at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Valley for the final Class 4A state tournament berth.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Burrell, who finished with 31 points and 11 rebounds. “We’ve been working really hard to get where we got today.”
After trailing for most of the first half, Liberty used a 23-9 run in the second half to open a 42-30 lead with 6:48 to play. Foothill clawed its way back, cutting the deficit to three points when Patriots leading scorer Dre’una Edwards (20 points, six rebounds) fouled out with 2:32 to go.
Senior Kaily Kaimikaua drained a 3-pointer with 45 seconds left to put the Patriots ahead 51-50. But Burrell answered with a 3-pointer 14 seconds later to give Foothill a 53-51 edge.
After a turnover, Burrell missed two free throws, and Liberty’s London Pavlica made 1 of 2 from the line with 6.3 seconds to play.
Burrell then made two free throws to make the score 55-52 before Celine Quintino’s last-second 3-pointer missed, allowing Foothill to escape with the win.
“When we started moving the ball through everybody is when we started getting buckets,” Foothill coach Laura Allen said. “Kylie Vint over here knocking down shots, Keilani (Brown) on the boards, it was an allaround team effort. And then Rae just going hard to the basket.”
SUNSET GIRLS
Pam Wilmore’s energy helped spark a second-quarter blitz as Centennial rolled to its seventh straight region title with a 66-20 victory over Spring Valley at Shadow Ridge.
“I thought Pam had a great tournament,” said Bulldogs coach Karen Weitz, whose team will try to win its third straight state title next weekend. “She didn’t score a lot for us, but her assists and her steals and her rebounding. She’s amazing athletically.”
Wilmore scored four points, with the baskets coming less than 20 seconds apart in the second quarter.
First, she stole an inbounds pass in the backcourt and scored, then picked Kayla Harris’ pocket and made a breakaway layup as part of a 15-0 run.
Justice Ethridge had 16 points on 6-for-12 shooting, and Eboni Walker added 15 points and eight rebounds for the Bulldogs (29-2). Centennial’s Samantha Thomas had 10 of her 13 points in the first half.
The Grizzlies (18-12) committed 13 turnovers in the second quarter and missed the only three shots they attempted against Centennial’s disruptive defense. They finished 5 of 24 from the field.
SUNRISE BOYS
Coronado’s Will Weems has the gravitating personality that endears him to all. It’s what brought him so close to his current teammates after moving from Detroit last summer.
Weems wasn’t as affable to Foothill in the Class 4A Sunrise Region final.
The 6-foot-8-inch senior scored 10 of his game-high 19 points in the second half and was a defensive force in the post, as the Cougars overcame a 13-point halftime deficit to top Foothill 56-47 at Canyon Springs.
“It’s a playoff run, so everybody came out to play,” Weems said. “Foothill is a great team. But in the second half, we just came out and played team ball.”
Weems, who added seven rebounds and four blocks, scored two go-ahead buckets in the fourth quarter for Coronado (18-9), which trailed 33-20 at halftime.
He gave Coronado its first lead since the first quarter when he scored on two Foothill defenders with 7:13 to play.
Weems scored again while getting fouled to put the Cougars up for good at 43-42 with 6:11 remaining. Coronado closed the game on a 13-5 run.
“We’ve got a bunch of seniors, and those guys didn’t panic at halftime,” Cougars coach Jeff Kaufman said. “We knew we were going to pick up the defense. We had saved a little something of our own, and that was the half-court trap.”
Marvin Coleman and Jeron Bodin scored 12 points apiece to lead Foothill (23-9), which faces Clark (25-4) at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday at Valley for the final state berth.