If the final shot had gone in, it would have seemed all so familiar to the Cleveland High girls basketball team. They had lost in late and agonizing fashion so many times before.
But the opposing team’s last-second shot missed, and so instead, the Cavs celebrated their first league win of the season, a 32-31 nail-biter at Granada Hills.
“I’m tired, and happy that working hard paid of for us,” said Jade Denson, the Cleveland senior point guard who scored 6 of her team-leading 11 points in the fourth quarter—accounting for her team’s entire output in that quarter. “As long as we stay calm and make strong decisions, we can hang on in these close games.”
It got especially close in the final moments. With neither team scoring much early, Cleveland’s lead seemed safe even though it never reac hed double-digits. But Granada Hills closed to within a point in the final two minutes, only to miss shots on their final possessions that would have given them the game.
An errant Cleveland inbounds pass gave Granada Hills the ball with five seconds left, and head coach Lou Cicciari used the team’s final timeout to diagram what he must have hoped would be the game-winning play.
But Jaclyn Tomita’s set shot from the right wing was off the mark, and the buzzer sounded, setting off the Cleveland celebration. Screaming and hugging one another, Denson and her Cav teammates left the court in style.
“Last year our (El Camino) game was like this,” said junior forward Pristine Shin, who finished with 8 points. “It’s exciting. I thought hat last shot (by Tomita) was a bit off, but I was definitely praying.”
Freshman guard Mariah Howard, who also scored 8 points, agreed with that sentiment.
“That was the longest five seconds of my life,” she said.
Granada Hills took a 26-20 lead into the fourth quarter, thanks to a defense that shut out all but two players on Granada Hills’ roster. Power forward Xava Grooms had 11 points and Tomita had 9, and that was it for the Highlanders.
But Ashley Samson came off the bench and sparked the Highlander rally, scoring all 7 of her points in the fourth quarter. Still, the Cavaliers seemed always able to maintain a three-or-four-point buffer zone until, with 1:30 left in the game, Granada Hills freshman Cassidy Wong nailed a 3-pointer from the right wing to make it 32-31.
The crowd went crazy, and so did the Granada Hills defense, putting pressure on Cleveland and forcing turnover after turnover. And yet the Highlanders were unable to capitalize on the opportunities their defense created. When Grooms missed the front end of a one-on-one with 45 seconds left, Cleveland took possession and looked to ice the game.
The Cavs were able to use up most of the 30-second shot clock, but Shin’s runner missed at about the 15-second mark, and then Cleveland forward Najia Lodin’s putback was way off the mark. Grooms came down with the next rebound at the 10-second mark, and she quickly drove coast-to-coast in her attempt to give her team the lead.
Grooms’ layup attempt drew contact from the defender, but it also drew a traveling call from the ref. Cleveland attempted to inbound the ball under its own basket with 6 seconds left, but the inbounds pass was tipped out of bounds by a Cleveland player, setting up Tomita’s last-second attempt with 5 seconds left.
Grooms rebounded Tomita’s miss and her rebound put-back was good, but by the time she got it off the final buzzer had already sounded.
“I tried to get it off,” said Grooms, who finished with a game-high 12 points. “We could’ve done better shooting throughout the game. But it’s always fun to play close games like this, whether you win or lose.”
Laney Ming, the Highlanders’ starting point guard who fouled out late in the third quarter, agreed with her teammate.
“I think we really stepped it up in the end, and I’m proud of the effort,” Ming said. “It wasn’t like a shameful loss; it was a well-fought loss.”
All the better, then, that Cleveland should avoid it—as the Cavs knew all about well-fought losses.
“It’s been a challenging season,” Cleveland head coach Carol Holton said. “We’ve played pretty close matches against Granada Hills and Birmingham. But this is our first league win.”
The Cavs have two games left in the season, so they hope their first win isn’t also their last. Asked if they might win one more, Denson was emphatic in her response.
“We don’t want to win just one,” she said. “We need to take both.”
CLEVELAND 32, GRANADA HILLS 31
Cleveland------7---10---9---6-----32
Granada Hills—5---6---9---11----31
Cleveland—Vanegas 0 0-0 0; Shin 3 2-8 8; Hernandez 1 0-0 3; Pressley 0 0-0 0; Howard 3 1-4 8; Denson 3 4-6 11; Lodin 1 0-0 2; Totals 11 7-18 32.
Granada Hills— Samson 1 4-4 7; Ming 0 0-0 0; Tomita 3 0-0 9; Shields 0 0-0 0; Cebulak 0 0-0 0; Boulos 0 0-0 0; Wong 1 0-0 3; Villegas 0 0-0 0; Grooms 3 6-11 12; Totals 8 10-15 31.
Three-pointers—Cleveland 3 (Hernandez, Howard, Denson); Granada Hills 5 (Tomita 3, Samson, Wong).
Technical fouls—none.
Fouled out—Ming.
