YUBA CITY ― Getting this close and coming up short is never easy.
One game away from playing at Golden 1 Center. One game away from the pinnacle of high school basketball.
For Lathrop girls basketball, the sting will remain. The emotions of being so close to the CIF State championship will linger.
But regret will not.
In the CIF State Division IV regional final Tuesday, March 10, No. 3 Lathrop (32-2) gave everything it had, but turnovers, leak-outs and foul trouble proved costly in a 61-46 loss to No. 1 Faith Christian (34-1) of Yuba City.
“When it’s all done, you should be able to look yourself in the eye and say, ‘Coach, I did the best I could,’ Lathrop coach Dwayne Davis said. “When I look at what they did today, what they did this season and everything they accomplished, they did an amazing job. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
Jaleiyah Ray led Lathrop with 15 points, knocking down four 3-pointers. Belinda Renteria added nine points off the bench, while Shakara Porter chipped in eight.
“I told the girls not to cry,” Lathrop coach Dwayne Davis said. “It’s like the Super Bowl — only one team finishes the season on top. But we had an exceptional season. When you look at what they did this year and everything they’re still learning, it’s special. Nothing is guaranteed next year, but we’ve got a strong foundation to build on.”
Fresh off a 47-point explosion in the semifinal against No. 4 Liberty Ranch, Faith Christian’s Lauren Harris scored 27 points. Earlier this season, she also broke the national record for most 3-pointers in a four-year high school career — 643 and counting.
Only two other Faith Christian players scored. Mia Bryan finished with 21 points and Presley Berry added 13.
“Every time we tried to close the gap, we’d turn it over,” Davis said. “Then they’d put together another run and create some separation. We kept fighting back, but they answered every time. That’s what good teams do. They make the plays when they have to.”
‘Practically handed them points’
Davis isn’t second-guessing the game plan.
Stopping a 3,500-point scorer like Harris is nearly impossible. The same goes for a 2,000-point scorer like Berry.
All Lathrop could do was make every look tough.
“I think we did an excellent job on them,” Davis said. “We wore them down. We got them tired.”
Still, he knew there was no room for self-inflicted mistakes.
The Spartans jumped out to an 11-5 lead with just under three minutes left in the first quarter behind two 3-pointers from Ray.
Then Faith Christian went on one of its many runs — one fueled by Lathrop’s mistakes. Four turnovers and eight straight missed shots sparked a 13-0 Faith Christian run that flipped the lead into an 18-11 deficit.
Lathrop never led again.
“We practically handed them points, and that’s what ultimately cost us,” Davis said.
‘The backbreaker’
The final margin was 16 points.
It was also the number of points Davis and his staff counted from leak-out layups. And that didn’t include the 18 made free throws Faith Christian made.
“We can’t put them at the line, and we can’t let them get leak-outs,” Davis said. “In the third quarter, I think we gave them two, maybe three over the top of our heads. They were getting easy ones while we had to work for everything.”
After trailing 29-17 midway through the second quarter, the Spartans cut it to 31-23 at halftime. But in the locker room, Davis could see the issue starting to surface.
Still, Lathrop came out strong, opening the third quarter on an 8-0 run to cut the lead to 31-29 in the first three minutes.
“I told them at halftime, ‘We need defensive stops,’” Davis said. “‘We’ve got to be able to put them together.’ We did that, but we didn’t fully capitalize.”
Five more turnovers followed. Nine more free throw attempts came. Two more Harris leak-out layups, wide open.
By the start of the fourth quarter, Lathrop trailed 43-33.
“We geared our defense specifically toward those two players,” Davis said. “What hurt us was letting Mia Bryan get loose for those layups. She finished with 21 points. I’m not trying to be disparaging, but that’s someone we didn’t expect to score that much. It could have been a different game, but more than half her points came on leak-out baskets.
“That was really the backbreaker.”
A backbreaker it was.
Lathrop cut the deficit to 43-36 in the opening minute, but two turnovers, a Harris step-back 3-pointer and three Bryan leak-out layups stretched the lead to 54-40 with just under four minutes left.
“The layups we gave up over the top really hurt us,” Davis said. “I’ll have to watch the film, but we think we gave up about 16 points on those leak-outs, and we lost by 16. I thought our defensive game plan worked for the most part, forcing their player into a high volume of shots. But it was the easy points that cost us. The free throw difference was around 24 to 10.
“I’m not blaming the fouls — we just gave them too many advantages.”
Against a program whose only loss was a 60-58 defeat to Chico on Dec. 19 — the No. 64 team in the state according to MaxPreps — another comeback was all but impossible.
With 2:02 remaining, the starters checked out, closing the book on the best season in Lathrop history.
“This group was a joy to be around,” Davis said. “We’re already talking about the pieces we have to replace and the talent coming up from a JV team that went 25-0.
“The cupboard isn’t bare. We just have to find a way to fill those spots.”
This article originally appeared on The Record: Faith Christian ends Lathrop’s historic run in CIF State regional final
Reporting by Dylan Ackermann, The Stockton Record / The Record
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
