Crean Lutheran girls basketball team rallies and goes overtime to defeat Tustin 73-66 in Empire League thriller

Crean Lutheran players celebrate after an overtime victory over Tustin.

Crean Lutheran’s girls basketball team used a big fourth quarter and went on to defeat Tustin 73-66 in overtime Monday night in a battle of two teams expected to compete for the Empire League title.

Tustin led 47-41 after three quarters before Crean Lutheran rallied, outscoring Tustin 19-13 in the final stanza to force overtime at Crean Lutheran.

“We really struggled offensively in the first half so we were just trying to get some buckets,” said Crean Lutheran Coach Kelsi Walker. “Usually our press creates our offense and we weren’t getting that.”

Crean Lutheran (17-2, 2-0) was led by Taylor Feldman with 27 points and Emily Reed with 15 points.

Hailee Daniel scored 12 points, 10 in the second half for the Saints.

“They did a good job of shutting down Shannon (O’Malley) and then we focused on trying to get it inside to Hailee and that helped us in the second half and opened things up for us,” Walker said. “She did most of her scoring in the second half.”

O’Malley was held to three points.

Trailing 60-58, Tustin tied the game on a driving lay-up by Alyssa Norada with two seconds left in regulation. But in the overtime, Feldman made eight free throws and the Saints outscored the Tillers 13-6 to seal the victory.

Caylee Hermanson, a Chico State commit, led Tustin with 30 points. Norada scored 16 points and Ahzira Faletoi added 14 points for the Tillers.

The Tillers (16-4, 0-2) suffered their second consecutive Empire League loss in overtime. Tustin fell to Kennedy 49-41 Friday in the opener.

“I thought we played a lot harder than how we started off against Kennedy,” said Tustin Coach Claire Gocke. “Kennedy, we kind of had to dig ourselves out. Match-up wise, Caylee shut down number 10 (O’Malley) who has broken her own 3-point shooting record, but they shot 33 free throws so we have to make sure we come out and contain that drive next time we face them. That’s something we kind of struggled with.

“We just have to play that all-around team defense. “We have a pretty small rotation as far as number of players that we get in and we have a really young team, which is a positive for us moving forward. But back to back overtime games in league after very little preparation and one day of practice…overtime seems to be our Achilles heel right now.”

Gocke was impressed, not only with Hermanson’s defense, but “overall leadership” and said it is “something we want to continue to see.”

Tustin plays at Cypress (8-8, 2-0) on Wednesday.

“One of the advantages is we have we’ve gotten through our two toughest challenges in league and we’ve got three games before we start the second round to try and get that momentum back and work on what we need to work on with a little more preparation for when we face them again,” Gocke said.

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com