By Richard Paolinelli
MaxPreps.com
The bid for a state title sweep fell agonizingly short for one Central Coast Section high school over the weekend in Sacramento.
Archbishop Mitty nearly pulled off the 2007 CIF State Basketball Championships Division II sweep on Friday at Arco Arena as the girls team rallied from a six-point deficit to defeat Brea Olinda, 54-49.
It was the third state title for Mitty's girls program and first since 1999. The Monarchs captured their first crown in 1995.
After watching the girls championship win, the Monarch's boys squad hit the floor at Arco and looked to be poised to pull off the sweep with a four-point lead in the final quarter against Santa Ana's Mater Dei.
But the team from San Jose went ice cold down the stretch, allowing Mater Dei to rally for a 69-64 overtime victory and end Mitty's dream of a dual championship season on the hardcourt.
The girls team had to overcome the efforts of Stanford-bound Jeanette Pohlen, who scored 21 points and pulled down 11 rebounds for Brea Olinda, but was hampered by foul trouble in the second half.
"They pressed me as I brought the ball up and then put a big aggressive post on me when I crossed half court," Pohlen said in a post-game interview with the San Jose Mercury News. "They tried to bang me around and get in my head."
Mitty (31-4) entered the game ranked fourth in state while Brea Olinda (33-2) was ranked second in California and ninth in the nation.
The Monarchs used a 17-2 run in the third quarter to gain control of the contest, getting key contributions from Kassandra McCalister (11 points) and Nicole Anderson (14 points, nine rebounds) in the Monarch's run for the title.
Oklahoma-bound Danielle Robinson led Mitty with 22 points and eight rebounds, gaining sweet revenge for Mitty's loss to Troy of Fullerton in the 2005 state championship game.
"We talked yesterday about how much we owed each other," Robinson told the Mercury-News. "We wanted to go out with a bang - it's an indescribable feeling to win this, and it was a team effort."
But as high as the Mitty girls were feeling on Friday, the boys' night ended that much lower.
Making their first appearance in a state title game, Mitty (29-6) literally had the banner in its grasp and then, suddenly, everything went wrong.
"Every loss is tough," Collin Chiverton, who led the Monarchs with 20 points and eight rebounds, told the Mercury News after the game. "But especially at the state finals with a lead at the end. That's the toughest thing."
The Monarch's defense was spectacular, holding Mater Dei under its scoring average, but Mitty's scoring woes late in the game were a fatal wound to the team's title bid.
After watching a 53-49 fourth quarter lead turn into a 61-53 overtime deficit, Chiverton drained a three-pointer and two clutch free throws to bring the Monarchs to within three points on two different occasions in the final minute.
But Taylor King, who led the Santa Ana squad with 29 points and 15 rebounds, answered with two title-sealing two free throws with less than 20 seconds left in the game.
Mater Dei (33-4) came into the game as the state's No.2-ranked team and captured its sixth state crown, avenging last year's title game loss to another CCS team, Palo Alto, and snapping a two-game losing streak in the title game along the way.
The CCS' other state final entry, Sacred Heart Cathedral of San Francisco, defeated Bishop Amat of La Puente, 60-54, in overtime to capture its second-consecutive Girls Division III championship Saturday afternoon at Arco Arena.
After Tierra Rogers' layup and free throw with three seconds left in regulation, Sacred Heart (32-2) cruised to the overtime win as Bishop Amat struggled at the free throw line in the extra period.
