The calendar read late December. The tipoff was mid-afternoon, not at night.<\/p>\n
But when Westview High School\u2019s girls basketball team defended its home floor Monday against rival Cathedral Catholic, the atmosphere felt more like a late February evening playoff game.<\/p>\n
Westview\u2019s 6-foot-1 Mia Jacobson wobbled off the court in the first period with her bell ringing and nose leaking blood after colliding with the Dons\u2019 6-2 Bianca Slone. The scorers\u2019 table had to be adjusted after players crashed into it chasing for a loose ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cFelt like a heavyweight boxing match,\u201d said Westview athletic director Steve McLaughlin.<\/p>\n
Thirty-two minutes weren\u2019t enough to decide the winner. After a four-minute overtime, Westview walked off with a 57-54 win. Westview advances to the final of the SoCal Holiday Prep Classic\u2019s WNBA Silver Division bracket.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe energy from both teams,\u201d said Westview coach Melissa Peng, \u201cthat definitely felt like a playoff game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defense proved the difference in overtime. The Wolverines forced three turnovers in OT, plus caused the Dons to miss three of four shots.<\/p>\n
Jacobson, who picked up her third foul with 1:21 to play in the second quarter then wasn\u2019t assessed another foul, hit a 15-foot jumper to give Westview a 56-54 lead halfway into overtime.<\/p>\n
Sophomore Jazzy Bernabe sank one of two free throws with 13.9 seconds remaining for a three-point lead. The Dons got off a 3-point shot near the buzzer, but it wasn\u2019t close.<\/p>\n
For Westview (6-6), the game earned a bit of revenge against the fifth-ranked Dons (8-5). Cathedral Catholic beat the Wolverines 59-43. Westview, though, played the game without senior point guard Sarah Heyn, a first-team All-CIF selection last season.<\/p>\n
Heyn missed the first 10 games of the season. She was training with the Philippines\u2019 women\u2019s national team for three weeks, then played four games in the Southeast Asian Games for the Philippines.<\/p>\n
Joked Heyn: \u201cI was playing with a bunch of 30-year-olds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monday afternoon, she was the Wolverines\u2019 glue, scoring 15 points, plus drawing defenders toward her before feeding assists on Westview\u2019s last two buckets in regulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing is, for me, I wanted to show them that this is our team, this is our gym,\u201dsaid Heyn. \u201cAnd no matter what happened the last game, we can come back and play well against anybody in San Diego.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cathedral Catholic led almost the entire game, the Dons\u2019 largest lead stretching to 21-9 early in the second period. After once leading 4-0, Westview didn\u2019t lead again until 53.1 seconds remained in overtime when a Jacobson layup off a Heyn feed made it 52-50.<\/p>\n
McKinley Hanlon (17 points, 10 rebounds) tied the game for Cathedral with 33 seconds remaining, setting the stage for OT. Jacobson scored a team-high 16 points and grabbed eight rebounds for Westview. Makena McLaughlin scored 15 for the Wolverines.<\/p>\n
The game featured some excellent shooting from deep, with both teams sinking 10 3s. Cathedral freshman Addison Yang scored 18 points, all on 3s.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is special,\u201d said Cathedral Catholic coach Jackie Turpin. \u201cAnd she\u2019s going to keep getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s real talented, a great shooter,\u201d Heyn said of Yang. \u201cI work with the same trainer. know how good she is. They kept setting screens for her and I couldn\u2019t get through them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The calendar read late December. The tipoff was mid-afternoon, not at night. But when Westview High School\u2019s girls…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":479074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,3102,1370,3549,7264,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-479073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-high-school-sports","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115806260953380111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}