_____________________
_____________________
The Whitney High girls basketball team defeated Half Moon Bay High 48-40 last Saturday morning in Sacramento to capture the CIF State Division IV championship. The Wildcats finish the program’s best season ever at 28-9. PHOTO BY LOREN KOPFF.
March 17, 2025
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
SACRAMENTO-The historical journey for the 2024-2025 Whitney High girls basketball team has finally ended with the biggest win in the program’s history. The Wildcats bolted out to a 10-0 lead over Half Moon Bay High, never trailed and captured the CIF State Division IV championship with a 48-40 win last Saturday morning at the Golden 1 Center.
Senior Haylie Wang led the Wildcats with 17 points, nine rebounds and five assists while sophomore Alyssa So added 15 points and hit a pair of three-pointers. Whitney wraps up the season at 28-9 and set school records with victories and games played. The previous record for wins came in the 2013-2014 season (25) and the old mark in games played was two seasons ago when Whitney, which fell to El Dorado High in the second round of the CIF-Southern Section Division 3AA playoffs, finished at 17-13. The 2018-2019 team also played 30 games (20-10). This was also the farthest any Whitney girls basketball team had advanced in the playoffs as there had been seven teams before this season that were ousted in the quarterfinals.
Less than a minute into the game, senior Allie Yamaguchi kick started the scoring with a three-pointer and 40 seconds later, Wang got into the action. So’s first trifecta with Wang getting the assist, made it 8-0 and So scored from her only steal of the game with 4:29 left in the opening quarter to complete the early run.
Whitney High senior Haylie Wang (left) and sophomore Alyssa So helped the Wildcats defeat Half Moon Bay High 48-40 last Saturday. Wang scored 17 points and grabbed nine rebounds while So added 15 points and four rebounds as they pose in front of the trophy that only six girls basketball teams from the state can win. PHOTO BY LOREN KOPFF.
“Half Bay Moon is a good team,” said Whitney head coach Myron Jacobs. “They’re actually bigger than us, as you guys saw; we’re not the biggest team. But we played with a lot of heart. We play fast, we play disciplined, and I think holding the lead was a message. We’re not built to exchange baskets. We’re more of a defensive team.”
“I think we moved the ball really well,” said So. “We ran our plays really well; [senior] Rachel [Moyher] got [one] really quick basket wide open. We just executed really well.”
Seconds before the midway part of the stanza, Xochitl Nieves put the Cougars on the board with a three-pointer, followed by a basket from six-footer Zoey Lemoge with 3:28 left in the quarter. Half Moon Bay, out of the CIF Central Coast Section, got as close as two points when Delaney Dorwin sank a pair of free throws with 6:04 left in the half, completing a 9-2 run.
But the Wildcats roared back with six straight points on baskets from Moyher, So, and senior Sarai Carter.
Whitney shot close to 43 percent from the field in the half, had a 16-15 rebounding advantage and took away four of Half Moon Bay’s seven turnovers. All five Whitney starters had either an assist, a point, a rebound or a steal in the first quarter.
Wang, who has held to half a dozen points in the first half, was on fire in the second half. She was four of six from the field, had four rebounds and an assist over the last 15 minutes before fouling out with 1:02 left in the game.
“I realized what I had to do because I was using the first half to measure [the game] out and see what was going on,” said Wang. “I started off real slow, but I had to pick it up in the second half.”
On the first possession of the second half, So scored to put the 605 League champions up 31-22, the largest lead they would have the remainder of the game. But every time the Cougars crawled back in the game Whitney had an answer. That included the bank heard around the state’s capitol as Yamaguchi, who nearly lost control of the ball with 1.1 seconds remaining on the shot clock, launched a shot with 0.3 seconds from the right point that went off the right side of the glass and in for a three-pointer, making it 34-26.
Whitney continued to lead anywhere from four to eight points from the 6:25 mark of the third quarter until just past the midway point of the fourth quarter. Both teams struggled in the final stanza, each getting a basket within the first minute, then nothing until Lemoge converted a three-point play with 3:41 left in the game. That would be the last time the Cougars would score as So converted on three of four free throws in the final 3:17 and Wang added her final high school basket with 2:02 remaining.
“Whitney is a real solid team,” said Half Moon Bay head coach Megan Smith. “[Wang] is a great player; made some tough shots. I think I would be remised to not bring up the banked-in three’s against us. We got a run of those this season. Some of those possessions just kind of break your back. But they’re a real solid team; hats off to them, and they played really well today.”
Although Half Moon Bay never led, it trailed by three points twice, by four points seven times, by five points four times and by six points 11 times. The Cougars ended the contest shooting 30.6 percent from the field and had only three players score in the game-Lemoge (18 points), Nieves (12 points) and Dorwin (10 points).
“I don’t know; if I think about it, I’ll let you know later,” said Smith of her team not being able to tie or take the lead. “I look at [assistant coach] Gabe [Glynn] at one point and said, ‘man, we just can’t seem to get out of that four, six-point deficit. Probably most of it was their ability to crash the boards; second chance opportunities for them. I thought we played a really solid, almost perfect 30 seconds of defense, and then too many times, they got the offensive board and got a good look at it.”
“We knew [Lemoge] was big, and she was good,” said Jacobs. “And we also knew that they had more than one shooter. We didn’t want to go a box and one and we didn’t want to double her to open up the wings. So, our plan was if we let her touch the ball, let it be somewhere around the elbow area or short corner to where she has to work her way to the basket.”
Also having a big game for Whitney was Carter, who tied Wang with nine rebounds. Carter relaced sophomore Cheyanne Chung in the starting lineup since the Southern California Regionals began and in the last four games, Carter has grabbed 33 rebounds and recorded five assists along with three steals. Only Wang has more rebounds over the past four games with 37 boards.
“I think my coach always talked about the importance of being a role player,” said Carter. “I think when I got inserted into the starting lineup, my goal was just to help the team win.
Whitney became the second school from the ABC Unified School District to win a state title. The Artesia boys team won the Division II championship in 1990, 1992, 1993 and the Division III crown in 2006 and 2007. The La Mirada High boys also won the 2015 Division II championship. The only area team to reach the state finals is the Valley Christian High girls squad, which lost in the 1987 Division II and the 1995 and 1996 Division IV title games.
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.