Coming into Thursday’s regular season’s finale at the Lions Den, the Faith Christian School girls basketball team had failed to topple 60 points just once in Sacramento Metropolitan Athletic League action.
Buckingham Charter was the lone SMAL team to hold FCS under 60 points – a game sandwiched in between three games where the Lions delivered 80-plus points all leading to victories. The offense has been rolling lately, led by senior Long Beach State signee Lauren Harris, who’s nearing 3,300 points for her four-year career. Harris’ final regular season home game at the Lions Den would fall back into what she called postgame a determined effort that forced the Lions to not get complete separation from John Adams Academy until late in the third quarter, en route to a 54-43 win over the Patriots, securing a fourth straight SMAL regular season championship and extending its league winning streak to 33 games.
“I don’t think we played our best basketball tonight,” Lauren Harris said, “but we showed grit and determination and that’s what got us the win.”
Leading by only three at 22-19 at the break, Harris came out with a vengeance in the third, hitting on her first 3-point attempt from the leftside; followed by a couple right in a row late as FCS (24-1, 12-0 SMAL) extended it to 38-25 with inside of 4 minutes left in the third. Harris finished with 35 points, including 26 in the second half to run to four-year total to 3,284 career points.
John Adams’ top-gun, Elliott Schwartz, kept pushing to try and keep the Patriots within reach down the stretch. The William Jessup commit finished with 22 points and had four steals and a block on defense in John Adams’ attempt in keeping Harris off the superhuman grid with frequent traps of No. 5 deep in the backcourt.
JAA (24-4) won the fourth quarter to keep the final score respectable in what could be the dress rehearsal between the two Division V powers as the season shifts into the Sac-Joaquin postseason starting today (Saturday) when brackets are released across all six divisions within the Sac-Joaquin Section.
FCS head coach Geoff Harris said the team was playing for home-court advantage in the semifinals of the division and feels it has done enough to secure at least the No. 2 seed in the upcoming 16-team tournament that starts with play-in matches on Monday.
JAA and FCS could be headed for a rematch at some point in the tournament so forgive Harris and company for not transforming into full celebration just yet.
“I’m thinking about what we can do better,” Harris said, “… League champs isn’t all that we can do.”
Presley Berry, Harris’ top running mate all season and throughout the four-year run through the SMAL, had 15 points, including 11 in the opening half when Faith was struggling to score for stretches and even trailed in both the first- and second quarters. Berry did much of her damage at the free-throw line with her ability to get into the lane and draw foul-after-foul on the John Adams’ defenders. Berry was 5-for-7 from the line to help aid the Lions in the opening half.
“She kept us in the game (first half),” Harris said. “Usually when I don’t have a good start (Presley) is the reason we’re still in the game – every close game.”
In other action …
– Yuba City was beaten 56-27 on senior day in Honker Gym, thanks in part a 22-7 Nevada Union run in the second quarter.
The Honkers finished 13-15 and 6-6 in the Foothill Valley League and will have to wait until today to see if it did enough to earn an at-large berth into the Sac-Joaquin D-III postseason. At last check this week, YC was top-15 in the weekly MaxPreps Division III poll, which is the minimum criteria set by the section to earn at-large bids.
YC was fourth in the FVL.