What’s the shortest stairway to Central Coast Section basketball heaven? For Pinewood School and its followers, the easy answer is play in Division V as the top seed.
After a three-year absence from a division it bolted from in 2001, top seed Pinewood took home the CCS Division V girls basketball championship trophy with a 31-21 win over second-seeded Sacred Heart Prep last Saturday at West Valley College. It marks the seventh consecutive CCS title captured by the Panthers, with the previous three coming in Division II.
Pinewood’s path to CCS glory this season was paved by a quirky playoff format and wretched marksmanship from an opponent who seemed to have forgotten how to shoot in the biggest game of the season.
Thanks to a narrow field of only six teams deemed worthy for the Division V playoff, both Pinewood (17-9) and Sacred Heart Prep (13-15) drew a bye in the first round and made it to the finals after winning just one playoff game. Thanks to an ice-cold shooting performance by the Gators, who made just 15 percent of their shots, the Panthers were able to grind out the championship victory without relying on their favorite weapon – the three-pointer.
While three-point shooting has always been a deadly force for the Panthers, it also cost them in the last two Northern California championship games when the three-ball went AWOL. The only constant in the school’s history of success is defense, and its tight zone defense on this day pressured Sacred Heart Prep into missing 46 of 54 shots.
Up against a fierce man-to-man defense itself, Pinewood was given few opportunities to launch shots from the outside and made turnovers with alarming regularity at the outset. The contest started as if there was a lid on both baskets as both teams appeared to have been infected by big-game jitters. While Sacred Heart Prep missed 18 of its first 19 shots, Pinewood had more turnovers (8) than shots (7) in the first quarter.
Then the Panthers found a way to draw blood via the feeding frenzies of point guard Daniela Roark. With eight seconds to go in the first quarter and the score tied at 2, they went on a 12-3 run to end the half mainly behind four pinpoint feeds from Roark to Alissa Flesher and Liz Altmaier for easy layups. For good measure, Roark then hit a trey to give her team a 17-5 lead one minute into the third quarter.
After making just two of 31 shots in the first half, the Gators began to hit their stride in the second half and pulled to within six at 13-19. Then an 8-0 run by the Panthers – featuring a picture-perfect pick-and-roll dish from Samantha Field-Polisso to Roark, a nifty baseline fake and layup by Flesher and a three-point bomb by Altmaier – put the game out of reach.
Despite catching turnover-itis from time to time, Roark had an otherwise brilliant all-around game handling the ball and controlling the tempo. Hounded by Sacred Heart Prep’s best defender, Roark was cool under pressure and repeatedly found open teammates underneath the basket for easy scores. She had a game-high 13 points and six assists, and managed to foul out her counterpart.
After riding the bench the last two years behind a bevy of talented teammates, junior Roark has emerged as the team leader this season.
“Playing with so many seniors the last two years taught me a lot,” she said.
Roark welcomes the role as the go-to player and enjoys playing in pressure situations.
“It’s good to be in control,” she said, “and I like it a lot.”
Six-foot sophomore center Flesher also came up big with 11 points and 11 rebounds, while fellow sophomore Altmaier pulled down seven boards. Freshman guard Field-Polisso, the second leading scorer on the team, was shut out on the scoreboard but contributed five rebounds.
Despite being required by enrollment regulations to play in a CCS division three rungs below where his team competed the last three years, head coach Doc Scheppler took nothing away from the latest achievement.
“This is one of the best wins for the school because there is meaningful competition,” he said. “Look at my players – their joy is genuine,” he said with a smile as his 10 players, including four sophomores and four freshmen, celebrated.
“We’re a young team, and we coaches created a what-the-heck-we-have-nothing-to-lose atmosphere,” Scheppler said. “Shooting threes is fine, but what we play is winning defense.”
Calling Sacred Heart Prep “a terrific defensive team,” Scheppler said the defensive grind his team went through should prepare it well for the upcoming NorCal competition. Pinewood, seeded third, was scheduled to host No. 6 Convent of the Sacred Heart (San Francisco), the Division V state champion and sixth seed. The winner advances to Thursday’s semifinals.
