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PALO ALTO — Prior to Tuesday night, no runner-up in the California Interscholastic Federation Open Division basketball playoffs ever found a shot at redemption the following year in the state final.
That’s no longer the case after both Northern California champions booked return trips this weekend to Golden 1 Center, home of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.
Sheldon is still in search of its first boys state title after falling short twice before, while this is the 10th girls championship game for Pinewood, a six-time Division V winner, most recently in 2014.
But the Open Division is a whole other beast, as attributed to the fact that since its inception in 2013 no girls team ever advanced this far twice in a row.
Until now.
“What can you say about the greatest team I’ll ever coach?” Pinewood coach Doc Scheppler said. “I mean, it’s just so fun to coach. They’re great kids. We have a focused, determined, confident air about us now and it’s so special to be a part of.”
Pinewood (27-3) takes on Sierra Canyon (32-1), the SoCal champion, on Saturday at 6 p.m.
It’s a rare chance for redemption at the biggest stage.
“We’ll start thinking about them tomorrow, have a couple of easy days, go up to Sac on Friday and make it a celebratory weekend for ourselves,” Scheppler said. “Because they deserve to make it just the greatest experience of fun and accomplishment and to make this state game something that they’ll always remember.”
Last year’s loss in the state final is something that Pinewood will never forget.
“Anytime you don’t experience success, you learn from it,” Scheppler said. “When you don’t get what you want, when you don’t win, then it makes your desire that much greater.”
The path to atonement found the third-seeded Panthers at Gunn High in Palo Alto, barely a mile away from their campus in Los Altos Hills, as host of the NorCal final.
It was a rubber-match against No. 4 Salesian of Richmond, which 72 hours earlier pulled off a monumental upset at top-seeded Archbishop Mitty, ranked No. 2 in the nation by MaxPreps at the time.
The Pride came out on fire Tuesday night, but simply couldn’t keep up with the Panthers, who deployed a patented and relentless barrage from beyond the arc in a 64-49 triumph.
Yale-bound Klara Astrom did the bulk of the scoring for Pinewood, connecting on seven 3-pointers for a game-high 27 points.
“We came out with a lot of energy but we just couldn’t sustain it,” said Salesian coach Stephen Pezzola, whose team held the Panthers to a season-low in scoring during a 54-45 victory at home on Jan. 26. “I think we just lost a little bit of focus on defense that we normally don’t do and Astrom got very hot. Give her credit, she was on fire. A couple of missed assignments, but a couple we had a hand in her face and she hit it.
“Astrom lit us up.”
It took a while to get going against the Pride (25-9), which ripped off an 8-0 run after tip-off and led 19-12 at the conclusion of the first quarter.
The Panthers shot 6 of 20 from long range in the first half, yet somehow leapfrogged ahead 30-29 at intermission, then promptly missed their first five tries out of the locker room.
That’s when Astrom sank consecutive treys midway through the third quarter to put Pinewood ahead the rest of way.
“No matter if I was missing or making it, I just needed to keep shooting because that’s what the team needed from me,” Astrom said.
“It’s like batting practice, you’re going to get your rhythm,” Scheppler said. “It’s the sign of being mentally resilient. I’m so proud of them for that because a lot of times when you don’t shoot well it can get you, and we stayed true to who we are.”
Meanwhile, in a future Pac-12 rivalry, Stanford-bound Hannah Jump at 5-foot-11 drew the assignment of guarding USC-bound center Angel Jackson, who stands 6 feet, 5 inches tall, for a third time this season.
Jump, a prolific 3-point shooter, only made one of her seven shots from beyond the arc. Instead, she drew her energy into the post, where Jump held Jackson to eight points through three quarters.
“My main focus coming into this game tonight was definitely my defense on Angel,” said Jump, who scored eight of her 10 points in the final 3½ minutes of play. “For our team to win I really had to minimize her points and opportunities to score. And I knew my shots would fall, sorry it took until a little bit in the end, but I know that when we get to state they’re going to be raining.”
“It’s tough being the best shooter in America, where everybody knows that you’re going to shoot it,” Scheppler said. “And I thought she did a great job staying positive.”
Jackson finished with 16 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks, while Hawaii-bound small forward MaKayla Edwards also cracked double figures with 10 points.
Amira Brown, one of two sophomores in the starting lineup for Salesian, added seven points, seven rebounds and six assists.
“We’ve got some young talent that now have a taste of what it is to come up second,” Pezzola said. “So, perhaps, they can come back and fight hard.”
Pinewood can relate.
As freshmen, Astrom and Jump helped the Panthers shock top-seeded St. Mary’s-Stockton, which was riding a 57-game win streak, in the NorCal Open semifinals, only to lose four days later.
Last year, Astrom and Jump helped the Panthers shock top-seeded Mitty, which was unbeaten, in a triple-overtime NorCal final, only to lose a week later.
“It’s tough for Salesian to come back from the highest of highs, where they upset Mitty,” Scheppler said. “It’s tough to come back the next game two or three days later. We’ve been in that boat.”
With a truncated playoff schedule this time around, Pinewood won’t have the usual week to prepare for its shot at redemption in Sacramento.
It doesn’t seem the Panthers care about that.
“Hey, we’ve got three days,” Scheppler said. “That’s enough.”
He added: “I coach great girls and they bought in. They’ve invested in our team and they’ve invested in their own improvement. They want to be great and when you play with great effort, and you play with great cohesion, and you have great skill that you’ve develop over time of mastering it, you deserve to be great.”
That includes the role players who may not see the floor on a nightly basis.
“To have such a supportive bench that’s willing to be there every practice, be there every game cheering us on, I can hear the bench and that’s not something that happens with every team,” Astrom said.
“And to add to that, our school, too,” said Jump, who took the NorCal trophy toward a raucous student section after the postgame ceremony. “It’s such an amazing support system. Literally our whole school came, I’m not even lying. All 200 of us.”
In the end, the students let out a thunderous ovation as Pinewood emptied its bench with 33.7 seconds left, with Jump the last player subbed out after icing the game from the free-throw line.
“I’ll definitely remember that moment,” Jump said. “Just being able to come off the court to receive hugs from all of my teammates has to be incredible and everything that we’ve worked for has paid off. Just everything we do has prepared us for this moment.”
She added: “I mean, we haven’t accomplished it, yet. Now we just have to win on Saturday. That’s everything we’ve been working for this season. To get there, it’s been an amazing journey and to finish our season with a win would be absolutely incredible.”
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