Her shots had been falling all night. With 23 points, she had led her Giants to the brink of victory. She was thirty seconds and two points away from bringing Redwood its first girls’ basketball pennant since 1980, a pennant she had hoped for throughout her past four years on varsity.
Her 23 points had come on a steady diet of impressive stepback jumpers over the outstretched hands of Justin-Siena defenders.
“I’ve been practicing them, but I wasn’t coming into the game trying to do that,” Senior Ariella Rosenthal said afterwards. “It just presented itself. That’s what you always try to do is just play the defense and see what they’re doing.”
On this play, the defense gave her a driving lane and she exploded toward it. Perhaps too hard, though, as her feet slid out from under her and she watched as the ball rolled away. Teammate Izzy Ingledew picked it up and passed to Chace Schornstein, who weaved her way to the basket where she flung up an off-balance left-handed layup that glanced hard off the backboard and into the hands of a Justin-Siena player.
A couple intentional fouls and a few meaningless free throws later, the Braves had sealed the league title with a 50-46 win on Saturday night. As the Braves celebrated raucously, Redwood players limped to the locker room with tears streaming down their faces.
“Because it was so close, you think about if we had just made one more play, made one more layup, or blocked one more shot,” Rosenthal said. “You just run through every single possibility in your mind of what might have happened.”
For a team filled with seniors, the loss represented an end to their MCAL careers.
“It was different for definitely me and all the other seniors because we can’t change anything else,” said senior Sally Elton, who has been on varsity since her sophomore year. “We’re going to try for NCS now but it definitely sucks not to be able to hold that pennant up.”
The teams traded leads throughout much of the second half, with Rosenthal consistently making clutch shot after clutch shot to help the Giants keep pace with the Braves. With two minutes left, she had done just that, powering her way to the block to flip a shot off the glass, giving her team a 45-44 lead that would hold for about a minute.
After each team failed to convert on their next possession, with 31 seconds left, the Braves generated an easy layup on a smooth pass from Haley Weaver to Isabel Jennings, taking a lead they would not relinquish.
“[Justin-Siena] has a few key players that we try to point out and focus on them and keep them from scoring,” said senior guard Izzy Ingledew.
The Giants did this for the most part, limiting Justin-Siena stars Haley Cremen and Sadie Irvine to 3-of-13 and 4-of-12 shooting, respectively.
But players like Jennings and point guard Morgan Malloy stepped up to join in the Braves’ scoring attack. Jennings led the brigade with six offensive rebounds.
“They got second and third chances that if they hadn’t gotten, we would have won,” Rosenthal said. “We probably would have won the game if we had boxed out on every play so they didn’t get second chances.”
Elton echoed the sentiment.
“I think what hurt us the most was not boxing out and letting them get second chances,” she said. “And a lot of them were layups so it was easy for them to get ahead but otherwise I think my team played their hearts out.”
Despite the heartbreaking loss, players and coaches alike expressed pride in the team.
“Overall I don’t think there was anything we could have done better,” head coach Diane Peterson said. “I think everything was left on the floor, the girls gave it everything they had and they played like a team. They fought, never gave up and gave them one hell of a battle.”
Rosenthal said she would not trade any one of her teammates for an MCAL title.
“I know my team gave it every single ounce of everything they have,” she said. “We made it this far and we’ve never done that, my coaches have never done that, and in my four years on varsity we’ve never gotten this far. It was awesome to be a part of.”
Peterson was glad to have Rosenthal, and Redwood’s five other seniors, as a part of the team.
“They’ve been a tremendous group,” Peterson said. “This is the first group that has come in as freshmen and and I’ve had all four years, so they’ve really built the foundation here at redwood and its going to be a successful program continuing on because of them.”
Despite their loss to Justin-Siena, the Giants were awarded the seventh seed in the NCS division II tournament, where they will face tenth-seeded Ukiah High School on Tuesday at 7 p.m at Redwood.
“We are ready to kill it,” Elton said. “We have never made it past the first round and I definitely think this year we can go much much farther.”
Coach Peterson set her sights high for her team.
“Qualifying for Norcal absolutely,” she stated as the team’s primary goal. “I mean we’ve gotten to the first game and only lost by a few last year. Every year it’s been a tight game but this year we are a far better team than we ever have been so I definitely see Norcals in our future.”
