Piedmont, Oakland Tech girls on rise in Bay Area basketball
The days when the Paris twins of Piedmont High School, Courtney and Ashley, competed against the Oakland Tech duo of Alexis Gray-Lawson and Devanei Hampton might have been the best era for girls basketball in the Bay Area.
All were 2005 McDonald’s AllAmericans and each led their teams to back-to-back state championships.
“Those were amazing times and some great battles between us,” said Piedmont coach Bryan Gardere, whose team would play Tech in nonleague games. “That seems like a long time ago.”
The more times change, the more they seem the same.
Piedmont (23-0) is No. 2 in The Chronicle’s rankings and Oakland Tech (22-5), coming off a comeback win at No. 7 Carondelet-Concord, is No. 4.
“There are no McDonald’s AllAmericans between us but there are a lot of really good players,” Gardere said.
Piedmont has a Big 3 in Trinity Zamora, a 6-foot San Diego State signee, 6-foot senior guard Eva Levingston and 5-7 junior guard Natalia Martinez. Zamora, The Chronicle’s Co-East Bay Player of the Year as a sophomore, has been out eight games with a knee injury and hopes to be ready by next week’s North Coast Section playoffs. She averaged 23 points and 18 rebounds as a sophomore.
“She’s one of the best players in Northern California no doubt,” Gardere said. “She sets the table.”
Levingston can guard any position “phenomenally well” Gardere said. She averages 17 points and close to 10 rebounds per game. She’s being recruited by Big West schools.
Martinez is a “shooting and ball-handling machine,” Gardere said, of the team’s leading scorer, who averages close to 25 points per game. She had 25 points in Tuesday’s 62-50 home win over No. 11 Bishop O’DowdOakland.
It was the second win over O’Dowd, the first coming Jan. 18 (69-62) when Zamora was injured. The Highlanders have flourished without her thanks to added depth with seniors Madison Hill, Perseas Gioukaris and Adrienne Blackwell.
Hill had 13 points Tuesday, Levingston 12 points and 12 rebounds and Gioukaris 10 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
“We’re not super deep but we have a lot of very skilled and determined girls,” said Gardere, who is in his 20th season. “We share the ball like the Warriors. And we have some shooters.”
The Highlanders were at full strength when they did what most didn’t think a local team could do: beat nationally ranked Mitty, which they did 60-56 on Dec. 10 at home in the Paris Twins Classic. Mitty was, and still is, without 5-star recruit Morgan Cheli because of an injury. She’ll likely be back for the postseason.
The Monarchs still featured several college-bound seniors, including Maya Hernandez (LMU signee), and perhaps the best freshman in the state, 6-2 post McKenna Woliczko, so the victory was no fluke. Martinez had 20 points that night as Piedmont improved to 6-0. Considering the Highlanders have remained unbeaten since then, many wonder why Piedmont is still behind Mitty (21-2) in the rankings. Not Gardere.
“I get it,” Gardere said. “Doesn’t bother me. They’ve been on top for so long and didn’t have their best player that night. And I respect the heck out of (Mitty coach) Sue (Phillips). I think she’s the best coach in the state. But we’re pretty good.”
So is Oakland Tech, which fought back from a 24-point deficit to win 76-70 at Carondelet on Monday. The Bulldogs, who followed that with an 83-29 win at Oakland on Wednesday, attack in waves with seven players averaging between 5.5 and 12 points.
Seniors Erin Sellers and Sophia Askew-Goncalves lead the way, averaging better than 11 per game, but Taliyah Logwood, Nia Hunter and Mari Somvichian all have scored in double digits this season.
Coach Leroy Hurt led the Bulldogs to state titles in 2019 (Division 4) and 2022 (Division 3) but was unsatisfied because his team was placed in lower levels under the competitive-equity model. There’s a chance Tech and Piedmont could be elevated to the Open Division or Division 1.
Then the East Bay powers could rekindle their rivalry, but this time in the postseason.
“That would be something,” Gardere said. “We just want to get as far as we can.”