Laguna Hills girls basketball team aiming to bring home another CIF championship

Laguna Hills Hawks after Saturday‘s CIF semifinal playoff victory. (Courtesy Laguna Hills athletics).

Laguna Hills girls basketball team will be trying to capture the sixth CIF title for the program when it faces league rival Kennedy in the Division 7 final Saturday at 6 p.m. at Azusa Pacific University.

Laguna Hills, coached by Jim Martin, has been in CIF finals five previous times and brought home a championship each year: in 1997, 2000, 2007, 2008 and 2012.

“The road literally has been challenging for us as we had three long road trips out of our four playoff games,” said Martin, who has been head coach for 28 years. “The players were able to tune out the distractions and persevere through some tight games.”

In the semifinals, Laguna Hills defeated Patriot 53-50 on the road. Senior captain Cameron McDermott led the Hawks with 20 points and nine steals and her younger sister Keira McDermott, had 14 points.

Marisol Bahena Torres scored 11 points off the bench and Lena Goodman had eight steals for Laguna Hills.

“We had a poor shooting first half and trailed by five at the break,” Martin said. “We stepped up the pressure in the second half and grabbed the lead in the fourth quarter, pushing it to 10 at one point before Patriot made a late push. Their center Linda Lasike-Tu’uhetoka was a tough matchup for us and finished with 28 points.” 

Laguna Hills (17-10) also defeated Mary Star 46-44 in the opening round; Capo Valley Christian 45-40; and Foothill Tech 46-33. Laguna Hills finished third in the Golden West League.

Kennedy (19-12) defeated San Jacinto Leadership Academy 65-35, Long Beach Poly 47-46, Cajon 53-20 and Burroughs 49-32. The Fighting Irish were co-champions in the Golden West League.

Kennedy won both of the league match-ups vs. Laguna Hills.

Both teams have also advanced into the CIF So Cal Regionals which begin the week after the CIF finals.

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