California high school girls basketball: Bret Harte goes wire-to-wire in 62-39 Division V win over Marina

SACRAMENTO — Few things that can top the feeling of winning a state basketball title. Unless you do it at your alma mater in your first year of coaching.

Jeff Eltringham graduated from Bret Harte (Angels Camp) in the gold country, playing basketball for the Bullfrogs for four seasons. He returned to the school and led a senior-led group to the school's first state, 62-39 over Marina (Huntington Beach) (21-16) on Saturday at Golden 1 Center.

"I went to Bret Harte. I bleed purple and gold," he said. "It's different when you're from here. To do it at home is really, really special."

The Bullfrogs (26-7) raced out to a 12-1 lead and never looked back behind 22 points from senior Ariah Fox, 10 points from Makenna Tutthill and nine from Chase Silva.

A school of barely 500, Bret Harte put to rest, at least for one game, the competitive equity complaint by going wire-to-wire against Marina, which has an enrollment around 2,300 students. But the Bullfrog faithful traveled well from Angels Camp as hundreds of fans sat across from the bench and a raucous student section — and even the costumed Bullfrog mascot — cheered on their team.

And while the winner's press conferences are usually joyous affairs, Fox wasn't afraid to let the tears flow.

"They're happy tears," she said. "But we've been playing together since middle school and this is the end of an era."

Freshman Maddie Kane started the scoring for the Bullfrogs, hitting a 3-pointer followed by two buckets from Fox and a right corner triple from Silva. Fox's bucket would give Bret Harte a 12-1 edge halfway through the quarter. The Bullfrogs pushed the edge to 15-8 after the first quarter, 32-20 at half and held leads between 12 and 20 for the rest of the game.

"I'm proud of our team," Marina coach Danny Roussel said. "We fought to get here with our back's against the wall several times and continued to play hard. ... I even felt at halftime we had a chance."

But the Bullfrogs seemed to separate themselves toward the end of the third quarter as Kadyn Rolleri and Fox hit buckets and Arias canned a trey for a 44-27 edge.

Bret Harte scored 21 points off turnovers and 32 points in the paint.

"We aren't very big, 5-8 or 5-9-ish at the biggest," Rouseel said. "They handled the pressure well and scored around the basket."

Marina freshman Rylee Bradley scored a game-high 23 while Tiana To added 10.