You can’t get much bigger in girls hoops than Ontario Christian’s Tati Griffin & Kaleena Smith. The duo led Knights to a major tourney title win. Photo: Harold Abend.
State’s preseason No. 1 girls hoops team looks like a national No. 1 team the way that it rolled to the Troy Warrior Way Hoops Classic title on Saturday. Preseason state No. 2 Sierra Canyon also was in the event, but is still missing State Junior of the Year Jerzy Robinson.
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Just how good are the Ontario Christian of Ontario girls?
After their showing in dominating and winning the Troy Warrior Way Hoops Classic early season tournament held in Fullerton on December 2-6 that ended on Saturday night, the Knight girls are looking pretty darn good.
With Cal-Hi Sports State Sophomore of the Year and Ms. Basketball State Player of the Year finalist Kaleena Smith, and State Freshman of the Year Tati Griffin, who looks pretty much recovered from a summer injury, both looking in mid-season form plus others, it’s looking like the Knights are absolutely deserving of not only the Cal-Hi Sports preseason No. 1 ranking, but they have a legitimate claim and argument to be ranked No. 1 nationally as well.
The Troy Classic was looking like it was set up to be a potential match-up in the championship game between Ontario Christian and preseason No. 2 ranked Sierra Canyon of Chatsworth, placed in opposite brackets of the eight-team Hess Division, but along the way upset central really made itself known.
Besides those two two-ranked teams, the field also included preseason No. 8 Sage Hill of Newport Beach in the same bracket as Sierra Canyon, and preseason No. 10 Fairmont Prep of Anaheim in the same bracket as Ontario Christian, as well as preseason No. 12 Moreno Valley on the Ontario Christian side.
Ontario Christian made fast work of up-and-coming Oak Park in a somewhat surprising 106-39 opening round victory. The Knights followed that up with an 89-43 win over Moreno Valley and then posted a 88-41 win versus Fairmont Prep, all very impressive results.
Photo: Harold Abend.
It was on the Sierra Canyon side that things went awry.
JSerra of San Capistrano, by virtue of an 18-11 season last year, only came into the game with a spot on the bubble of the preseason state rankings. However, head Coach Rachael Ziemann and her Lions put themselves on the map early with a 60-54 victory over Sage Hill with a balanced scoring attack of 6-foot-2 junior wing Vivian Grenald with 17 points, 6-foot-2 junior wing Kayla Rice with 14 points, flashy junior point guard Rose Santos and junior guard Shae Talleur with 13 points apiece.
Topping that win, JSerra came back and followed that with a huge 67-63 upset victory over a Sierra Canyon team that is visibly missing Cal-Hi Sports State Junior of the Year Jerzy Robinson, who has been out around three months with a bad ankle. In that game, Grenald led the way with 20 points and Santos with 18 points, including five big free-throws down the stretch. JSerra finished pool play with 70-51 win over San Clemente behind 28 points from Grenald and 22 points from Rice.
Having won its first three games, that set up a championship final match-up between JSerra and Ontario Christian, but in this contest the state’s top team wasn’t interested in any of the previous results or upsets and came out on fire in an 86-58 victory that was not anywhere near as close as the score indicates.
Ontario Christian (9-0) bolted out to a 5-0 lead, led 35-8 after one quarter and 60-19 at the half before head coach Aundre Cummings took his foot off the gas pedal and the their credit JSerra never quit despite the outcome obviously being over early.
Ontario Christian ended up converting 13 three-pointers with 12 coming in the first half. The 5-foot-11 Griffin finished with 28 points with six three-pointers, five coming in the first half, plus six rebounds, an assist, steal and a block. She had obviously has been working on her outside shooting, although she did convert on 43 from outside the arc last year. As usual, Smith filled the state sheet. She also finished with 28 points (three three-pointers) plus six steals, four rebounds and four assists.
Chloe Jenkins, a 6-foot freshman guard, had a double-double after finishing with 18 points with two three-pointers plus 16 rebounds with two steals, two assists and a block. Dani Robinson, a 5-foot-10 junior guard, finished with 14 points (two three-pointers) plus four rebounds.
JSerra (8-2) was led by Grenald with 25 points (one three-pointers) plus eight rebounds, four assists and three steals. Rice added 11 points, four rebound and two assists and Talleur also had 11 points, including three three-pointers.
After bouncing back from the JSerra loss, Sierra Canyon bested Sage Hill 75-59 and then the Trailblazers won the third-place game with an equally impressive 61-43 victory over Fairmont Prep.
Sierra Canyon (5-1) went out to a 5-0 lead and never looked back after leading 16-8 after one quarter, 29-14 at the half and 46-33 before it coasted home.
Junior guard Jordan Malek connected on six three-pointers and led the Trailblazers with 20 points. Senior guard Delaney White added 15 points with three three-pointers and senior forward Payton Montgomery had 11 points.
Fairmont Prep (3-3) was led by 6-foot-3 freshman center Aaliyah Mack with 17 points with two three-pointers and senior guard Adyra Rajan with 12 points, but the Sierra Canyon defense held one of the state’s leading three-point shooter to none for the game.
The Yano Division title game saw host Troy with head coach Kevin Kiernan back at the helm taking on Los Osos of Rancho Cucamonga, but the Warriors couldn’t deliver win No. 906 to the state’s all-time winningest coach after falling 69-51 to Los Osos.
Junior guard Tory Johnson led Los Osos (8-2) with 24 points, all on eight three-pointers. Seniors Tiyana Saunders and Ivana Nwagbo added 17 and 13 points, respectively.
Troy (5-3) was led by senior transfer Mei-ling Perry with 25 points, including two three-pointers.
Archbishop Mitty captures
La Jolla County Day Sweet 16 Invitational
Cal-Hi Sports Preseason No. 4 Archbishop Mitty of San Jose (4-0), with superstar and Iowa-committed senior McKenna Woliczko not scheduled to come back from injury until after the first of January, opened its season by winning the La Jolla County Day Sweet 16 Invitational after an 80-38 victory over San Diego Lincoln, 66-48 versus Francis Parker of San Diego, 56-34 over Mission Hills of San Marcos, and a 76-46 victory in the championship title game over Rancho Christian of Temecula.
Mitty got 34 points (three three-pointers) from 6-foot-2 sophomore star center Maliya Hunter in the title tilt. Junior Ze’ni Patterson added 14 points.
Rancho Christian (5-1) received 14 points freshman Addison Archer and 10 points (two three-pointers) from senior Ebony Tayler-Smith.
Harold Abend is the associate editor of CalHiSports.com and the vice president of the California Prep Sportswriters Association. He can be reached at marketingharoldabend@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter: @HaroldAbend
