Santa Ana players Ashley Mendoza (22) and Yarexy Díaz (3) walk off the court in disappointment as Hillcrest players celebrate in jubilation after winning the CIF Division 5AA title Saturday morning at Edison High School. (PHOTOS: Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone).
Santa Ana High School’s girls basketball team battled until the final buzzer but the Saints comeback against Hillcrest fell short in the CIF 5AA championship game at Edison Saturday morning.
Hillcrest survived a late run by Santa Ana to win 39-36. Santa Ana was trying to reach the championship game for the first time in school history. Irvine’s last finals appearance was in 2022.
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“I’m just so proud of the girls today, we had trouble scoring, we just fell short,” said Santa Ana Coach Dana Nguyen. “We came out at halftime and we said we thought they didn’t handle ball pressure very well so we came out and put a little ball pressure on them, and it gave us an opportunity to come back, we just had a hard time hitting shots today, we missed some easy ones around the basket.
“Some shots we normally make just didn’t fall but we knew if we were going to get back in the game and make it close we had to put some pressure on their guards, and in the second half, I feel like we did a pretty good job.”
Santa Ana (16-13) was led by Yareky Diaz, who had 15 points and six rebounds and Jazmine Solis, who had 10 points. Cynthia Silva had six points and nine rebounds and Ashley Mendoza had eight rebounds for Santa Ana. The Saints were able to make only 9 of 50 field goal attempts (18 percent).
Hillcrest (21-6) was led by Raylene Valadez, who had 14 points and Zoey Boulware, who had 10 points and 15 rebounds. Za’nylah Jackson had 11 rebounds The Trojans also struggled shooting, making 13 of 52 (25 percent) of their shots.
Hillcrest outrebounded Santa Ana 46-38.
Hillcrest held an 18-14 lead at halftime and led 31-24 after three quarters.
The Saints made a late charge, cutting the lead to 36-32 on a 3-pointer by Solis with 54 seconds left. Hillcrest went up by five points but Silva hit two free throws with 23 seconds left to cut the lead to three.
However, Hillcrest was able to hold on for the win despite being outscored by four points in the final quarter.
“There were big shots by Yareky today and I think Cynthia (Silva) down the stretch, her leadership was apparent today,” Nguyen said. “She did whatever she could to try and get the ball in the hoop and got us to the free throw line. We just couldn’t get some shots to fall today but we were in it, we knew if we followed the game plan we were going to give ourselves the best possible chance to win and I feel like we did that today. We just couldn’t get some big ones to fall.”
Santa Ana players were disappointed with the loss but proud of their effort.
“I think we played our hearts out, Silva said. “I think we left everything that was needed to be done. We did fall short at the end, but I trust my team and I’ve always trusted them and we’ve had the same starting lineup since last year, it was just a matter of going out there and leaving it all out on the floor. They’re like my second family, I don’t care who shoots the ball, as long as we get a shot up.
“I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done after how hard adversity hit us during league season. Our long term goal was to be in the CIF final and we were here, we made it, we just fell short.”
“I think we had a really good game,” added Diaz. “We came out and started pretty strong, we tried to pick it up in the whole second half, we just fell short today, some big shots didn’t go in today, but I trust my team, it’s a very big difference as compared to last year, there’s a lot of growth this year, so I’m just very proud of my team and no matter the outcome, I was happy because we faced a lot of adversity and pushed through.”
Saturday’s title capped a big-turn around for Hillcrest, which won just seven games last year.
“I’m super excited, that was an amazing win,” said Hillcrest Coach Chloe Wells. “It wasn’t that we just won that one game, we’ve been winning this whole season and pursuing excellence the whole time. God led me here to this school, I’ve been playing basketball overseas for 10 years, and I knew it was time to put the ball down.
“I saw greatness in them, I knew from day one they were special. I call them the comeback kids because they have a season like that. They played like they had been here. I was proud, we got the win, we gutted it out, the Santa Ana team is good, they can play and they never let up, they battled the whole time, and we never let up.
“We did what I wanted them to do, own the offensive and defensive rebounds and outhustle and out-work and just grind it out until the very end and that’s exactly what they did.”
Nguyen, the Santa Ana coach, was also proud of her team, which along with Hillcrest advances to the CIF State Regionals next week.
“It’s been incredible, I’m so proud of these girls, I wanted this one so bad for them today,” she said. “These seniors are incredible, it’s been an honor coaching them and watching their leadership and their love of basketball and their love for each other has been incredible and this run in the playoffs has been a testament to how mentally tough this group is, we’ve overcome so much and so much change in a short period of time. We were peaking at the right time, right when the playoffs started.
“We were getting better and better leading into today’s game.”
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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