The Riverside Press-Enterprise
No.1 seed Rancho Cucamonga comes up short against Anaheim Canyon
Playing in the first CIF Southern Section championship game in program history and playing in a spacious arena often leads to nerves and a poor start.
But it wasn’t the start that was the problem for the Rancho Cucamonga girls basketball team Saturday morning. It was the finish.
The top-seeded Cougars led by as many as nine points in the first half and six points early in the second half but faltered down the stretch and fell to Anaheim Canyon 52-43 in the Division 4AA championship game at Toyota Arena.
“We came out hot. We knew we needed a good start,” Cougars coach Josh Khazali said. “I felt like we had a good warmup. We were still getting downhill, in our sets and we were still executing getting to the basket, but we couldn’t hit
the layups. We had some open shots that weren’t going in.”
The Cougars scored 23 points in the game’s first 10 1/2 minutes, but only scored 20 the rest of the game. Yet from the midway point of the first quarter until early fourth quarter, Rancho Cucamonga did not lose the lead.
That is until Justine Prajitno made a 3-pointer with 5:30 to play that started an 8-0 run and gave Canyon the lead for good at 40-37.
Foul trouble didn’t help the Cougars (24-9), who finished third in the Baseline League. Freshman Zara Ahaiwe, who scored 10 of her 12 points in the first half, was charged with her fourth foul 30 seconds into the fourth quarter before eventually fouling out. The Cougars were called for 17 fouls compared to 11 for Canyon.
“Mentally, for me, it was a lot of the foul calls,” Cougars junior Ndiah Hall said. “There were certain things I would get when driving, but I didn’t get the calls in this game, so that threw me off.”
Hall tied with Ahaiwe for team-high honors with 12 points and added eight rebounds, but Hall made just 4 of 20 shots from the field as the Cougars shot 24.6 percent from the field as a team.
Led by sophomore Lauren Jensen’s 24 rebounds, the Cougars dominated on the boards (51-29), but came up short in nearly every other category, including turnovers (14-8).
The disappointment Saturday is not the end of the season, as the Cougars will compete in the CIF State playoffs beginning Tuesday. And it shouldn’t overshadow the team’s season.
“I’m so proud of this team,” Khazali said. “To reach our first finals in school history, it’s a historic thing. Obviously, I’m extremely proud of them. I know they’re all hurting. We’re going to bounce back and have a shot (at state).”
Jasmine Prajitno scored a game-high 20 points for Canyon (22-11), and Justine Prajitno added 16.