Well, it was bound to happen. But it wasn't suppose to happen here. Not this early.
Moriah Faulk is Santa Monica's
leading scorer at 14 points
per game.
File photo by Louis Lopez
When No. 1
Brea Olinda (Brea, Calif.) and No. 3
Mater Dei (Santa Ana) moved up from Division II this season, the CIF Southern Section Division I field would boast the top three girls basketball teams in the country.
With second-ranked
Long Beach Poly, which had owned the top Division with five consecutive crowns, in the field as well - that meant two elite teams would be eliminated before even reaching the state finals.
On Wednesday, it was the queens of the division, Long Beach Poly which endured a stunning 57-56 quarterfinal and season-ending 1AA home loss not to one of the other national powers, but to
Santa Monica. It snapped a 19-game win streak and an 11-year-run for Poly to reach the Southern Section title game.
Santa Monica (22-8) is no slouch, but what made the win so improbable is that Poly had defeated the Vikings by 17 points on Jan. 22. Then again, motivation on both ends might have had a lot to do with it.
According to reports from the GazettesSports.com, senior
Bianka Balthazar made one free throw with 1.7 seconds remaining to win the back-and-forth affair.
Poly (25-3) trailed 54-50 when it scored six of the next eight on a bucket from
Destiny King and two free throws each by
Tajanae Winston and
Ariya Crook-Williams, the latter with just under a minute left to tie the game at 56-56.
Poly could have held for the last shot, but Crook-Williams missed a pair of shots before the ball went out of bounds with 10 seconds to go. Santa Monica worked the ball around to Balthazar at the free throw line, where she made a nice move past a defender and went up for a floater that was blocked cleanly by Keyla Morgan, who was whistled for a body foul.
Replays showed Balthazar was knocked backward (she fell to the floor) but it was difficult to tell if it was because of Morgan's body - she moved quickly from the other side of the key - or simply the force of the block.
Either way, the foul was called, she made the second of two free throws and rather than attempt some sort of inbound pass near midcourt, the defeated Jackrabbits instead handed the ball to Crook-Williams near the Santa Monica baseline and her nearly full-court shot fell short.
According to the website, Baltazar had a team-high 17 points and Moriah Faulk added 15 for the winners. UCLA-bound Sheila Boykin led Poly with 19 points and 13 rebounds and Ariya Crook-Williams chipped in 10.
Poly had lost only to Brea Olinda this season, by eight and seven points. The Jackrabbits also had a win over Mater Dei 61-56. All those games were before Christmas.
It was the second straight rather shocking season-ending loss for Poly, which dropped a 55-42 CIF State title game to heavy underdog Oak Ridge. That loss broke a four-year run of state titles for the Jackrabbits.
Terrific video of the game from GazettesSports.com, and the final sequence.
