The Lady Vikes (24-3, 11-1 league) secured an exclusive De Anza League championship title with an electrifying 39-30 victory over visiting Wilcox during Senior Night on Friday.
“I’m just happy for the girls,” head Paly coach Scott Peters said. “It wasn’t easy with a first-year coach, and they worked hard, and they put everything they learned tonight into the sequence, and that’s what won it for us. I’m very proud.”
The girls’ Senior Night ceremony, marked by colorful bouquets for the seniors and posters hung around the gym with each honoree’s name and jersey number, celebrated Paly’s eight distinguished seniors: Gabryell Hanson, Ranecia Fields, Megan Grant, Bre Clay, Inez Feltscher, Jane Griffin, Melody Gaal and Lola Wusu.
Parents came down from the stands to stand with their respective daughter, and assistant coach Dick Held read a brief accolade for each player. After the younger players mobbed the seniors and shared a group hug, the game commenced.
Wilcox (24-3, 9-3 league) took the tipoff, but hit the ball to senior point Ranecia Fields. Forty-five seconds into the game, Fields handed the ball off to fellow senior guard Bre Clay, who passed to well-positioned senior Lola Wusu for the basket. Shortly thereafter, sophomore Wilcox guard/wing Anecia Jones countered with a three-pointer from the right.
Although Clay soon regained a tenuous one-point lead with a half-court drive culminating in a layup, the Lady Chargers snapped off another three pointer from senior guard Derisa Tolini, followed by a free throw by Toleni and a Wilcox field goal. The pattern continued throughout the corner, with Paly goals quickly overshadowed by the Chargers as the first period ended, 13-9, for the visitors.
Things looked grim for the Vikes as the second quarter proved to be much like the first, although with nine points Paly was only a point behind in the shots made that quarter. The Lady Vikes rallied for the first few minutes with a field goal each from Clay and senior guard/forward Megan Grant and a three-point shot from freshman guard/forward Rachael Pecota, who with 11 points was the game’s highest scorer.
Wilcox came back with 10 points, punctuated only by two free throws from Paly senior guard Melody Gaal. The Chargers held their lead as they finished the half, 23-18.
Paly found its stride going into the third quarter, when the team slowed down their offense to run more controlled plays.
“I think it was taking our time on offense that made us be able to come back,” Gaal said. “In the beginning, we were kind of rushing it, like taking shots with too much time on the shot clock, and in the second half, we took our time more.”
Wilcox began the quarter with a field goal, which the Vikes matched with a rebound from Megan Grant off of Pecota. The Chargers were frustrated by multiple missed shots and a few that managed to circle the rim before popping back out again, much to the disquietude of the visitors’ fans.
“Fortunately, some of their [Wilcox’s] shots rimmed out. They had some good shots that didn’t go in,” Peters said.
A minute and a half later, Wilcox scored a free throw, followed by Paly’s Grant with the third of her four baskets of the game. Toleni bagged another free throw, scoring the last Wilcox point of the quarter. Fields deftly replied with a three-pointer from the top of the key, and Pecota closed the period with a free throw to bring the Vikes within one point of matching Wilcox, 27-26.
“I think we fought hard in the second half, and that was really important,” Gaal said. “We usually kind of slump in the third quarter, but we had a really good third quarter, we had a really good fourth quarter and we came back, and we fought, even though we were down at half[time].”
The Vikings finally broke the achingly close score with a three-pointer by Pecota, with the advantage widened at 5:41 with another three-point shot, this time from Fields. Pecota snagged a free throw before senior Wilcox guard Monica Salazar was fouled making a field goal that flew straight up above the backboard before landing with a swish, which Salazar added to with a free throw.
Still ahead by three points, Paly proceeded with a three-basket blitz by Clay, Grant, and Gaal, each within thirty seconds of one another. The Lady Vikes concluded the game with a comfortable lead, 30-39, to claim the championship as theirs and theirs alone. Had the Chargers won, the teams would have tied at 10-2 and shared the league title.
Paly’s aggressive play checked Wilcox dramatically in the second half, curbing the Chargers to seven points while scoring 21 themselves.
“[We concentrated on] running our plays, working as a team,” Fields said. “We wanted to win league, we didn’t want to share league. We won league today, though, and I’m very happy about that.”
The Vikes focused especially on their defense, specifically keeping a constant presence on Toleni. Toleni averaged 18.4 points per game going into Friday’s match, having scored 15 of her currently 485 points in the Chargers’ 40-39 loss to Paly on Jan. 10. Paly managed to limit Toleni to only seven points, her second-lowest total of the full season.
“She [Toleni] was the only one we were worried about, and we shut her down, we beat her down,” Clay said.
The newly crowned league champions celebrated their win boisterously, with hugs, cheers, and high-fives all around. Many players rushed the stands to be congratulated by friends and family before making their way back to the locker room.
“It feels so good to be number one,” Gaal said.
The 4th-seeded Lady Vikes will play 13th-seeded North Monterey County in their first round of CCS at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 23 in Paly’s big gym,
“I’m excited. I think we can take it really far,” Gaal said. “I think we play with heart, and I don’t think there’s a team out there that can stop us, really.”