RANCHO CUCAMONGA — Punch and counterpunch.
That was Saturday night’s CIF Southern Section Open Division girls basketball pool-play finale between No. 2 -seeded Etiwanda and No. 3 Mater Dei in a nutshell.
Etiwanda trailed early but bounced back behind some hot 3-point shooting. The Eagles nearly squandered a 19-point lead, but Arynn Finley’s banked runner with 15 seconds remaining helped Etiwanda hold on for a 65-60 victory over the Monarchs.
Etiwanda (25-4) advances to next week’s Open Division final, the program’s fourth straight season reaching the championship round. The Eagles will seek a second straight Open Division title and third in four seasons when its plays top-seeded Ontario Christian next Friday or Saturday at a site and time to be determined.
Finley finished with 17 points, while Shaena Brew and Aliyahna “Puff” Morris each added 15 points for the Eagles.
“We took some ill-advised shots early and Mater Dei was able to use them to get opportunities in transition but after that first timeout we settled down and got back to good offense,” Etiwanda coach Stan DeLus said. “We’ve had some young kids really have to grow up in a hurry with graduations like Arynn and Shaena and tonight they stepped up when we needed them most.
“I knew Mater Dei had a run in them and sure enough they made one but we found a way to weather the storm and reach another championship game.”
The Monarchs (28-3) ran out to an early 10-2 lead as Harmony Golighty and Amaya Williams hit 3-pointers. Etiwanda responded with an 11-0 run that covered just under 2 minutes to take a 17-14 lead after a quarter. Grace Knox’s left wing 3-pointer as time expired gave the Eagles their first lead of the evening.
Hot shooting from beyond the arc was Etiwanda’s story in the second quarter as they took a 38-28 lead to intermission. Five different Eagles struck from deep as Etiwanda scored 15 of their 24 points in that period from 3-point range. Knox and Morris hit the final pair of 3-pointers for Etiwanda with less than a minute left until intermission.
The Eagles finished with 10 made 3-pointers Saturday night.
Coming out of the half, Etiwanda went on a 13-4 run to push their lead to 51-32 with half of the third quarter gone. Brew connected on a pair of 3-pointers in the run.
However, Mater Dei closed the quarter on a 15-4 run and only trailed 55-47 with 8 minutes left. Golighty scored six straight points as part of that run for the Monarchs.
With exactly 3 minutes left, Golighty tied the game at 59 on a 3-pointer. However, Etiwanda scored four of the final five points in the game, on a putback from Morris and Finley’s banked-in floater. Mater Dei turned it over on their final possession with 3.3 seconds left and Etiwanda survived.
“We knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to get through Mater Dei and that it would take all of us working together to advance,” Finley said. “To get to the final is such a blessing and we’re going to work this week to make sure we’re ready for that opportunity, whenever it comes.”
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