SOUTH COAST LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Capistrano Valley Tops Mater Dei Girls

Seventh-ranked Mater Dei defeated one Top-10 team in its last outing. Tuesday night, it looked as if the Monarchs would add another trophy to their wall.

Except Tuesday night, they couldn’t finish the kill.

Instead, fourth-ranked Capistrano Valley (13-3, 4-0) came back from a 15-point second-quarter deficit to gain a 63-49 South Coast League girls’ basketball victory over the visiting Monarchs (13-4, 3-1).

Capistrano Valley Coach Harlan Peete said his team’s game plan was simple: They had to play well. They had to apply man-to-man pressure. They had to get the ball out. They had to run.

Which they didn’t do in the first half.

“I didn’t think we would come back in the fashion that we did,” Peete said. “I told the girls at halftime if we could get it down to five or six points at the end of the third quarter, we had a chance. I didn’t know we were going to go up at the end of the third quarter.”

Mater Dei led, 21-7, after one quarter and held a 26-11 lead with 4 minutes 55 seconds left in the first half. Stacey Howes, who finished with 16 points, scored six consecutive points, sparking a 10-0 run to cut the lead to five, but the Cougars spent themselves on the comeback, and the lead was back to 10 at the break.

Then the tide turned. Capistrano Valley got the rebounds. It got the turnovers. It developed a transition game. It made more baskets, shooting eight of 14 in the third quarter, than it had in the entire first half.

Susan Scott, who had 11 points, and four-year varsity player Angie White, who had 15, each scored six in the quarter. When Katie Scott put back a rebound after a missed free throw, the Cougars had their first lead, 37-36, with 2:58 to play in the quarter.

White then stole an inbounds pass and Scott added two free throws after the foul. In a scant 24 seconds, Capistrano Valley had scored five points to take a 39-37 lead. It was that kind of half for the Cougars, who converted 21 of 33 free throws. The Monarchs made 10 of 13 from the line.

Mater Dei’s Tina Afan completed a three-point play to cut the deficit to 42-41 with 28 seconds left in the third quarter, but it marked the end of the Monarchs’ offense. Their next basket came with 3:59 left and, by then, they trailed by 11.

Mater Dei got 14 points, including four three-point field goals, from Adrienne Botana in the first quarter, but Botana finished with only 18 points. Leticia Oseguera, averaging 16.4 points, scored only eight. Both got in early foul trouble--Botana got her second with 28 seconds left in the first quarter--and the offense was never the same when they returned midway in the second quarter.

It was White who was responsible for guarding Botana in Capistrano Valley’s man-to-man defense.

“I think Angie (White) took it personally,” Mater Dei Coach Brenda Yecke said. “Adrienne never caught the ball again without Angie right there on top of her.”

In other South Coast League games:

Mission Viejo 50, Dana Hills 49--The host Diablos opened the third quarter with an 11-4 run to take a 35-24 lead on their way to an upset of the 10th-ranked team in Orange County.

San Clemente 59, El Toro 34--Michelle MacIntyre had 24 points for San Clemente (10-8, 2-2), which took a 19-7 lead after one quarter and a 36-17 lead at halftime.