RANCHO CUCAMONGA — The Los Osos girls basketball team might be the No. 1 seed for the CIF Southern Section Division 3AA playoffs, but the Grizzlies should not be confused with a team that has plenty of postseason experience.
Until this year, Los Osos hadn’t won a playoff game since 2018, and hadn’t been this far since 2017, when the Grizzlies won a section championship and went to the state finals.
So there were bound to be some nerves at least at the outset for Wednesday’s quarterfinal game.
Los Osos fell behind by seven points in the first half, then rallied and won going away, defeating Louisville 58-42 in at Los Osos High School.
The Grizzlies (23-4) will host fourth-seeded Moreno Valley in the semifinals on Saturday. Louisville (15-8) sees its season come to an end.
“For our team, this is our first time being here,” Los Osos coach Dawnesha Buckner said. “We made a joke before we came out, (asking), ‘who’s been in this position?’ Only myself and coach raised our hands. They’re not going to say it is, but it’s nerves. They really settled down near the end and got it together.”
Louisville capped the first quarter with a 7-0 run to take an 18-11 lead into the second. The teams traded the first two baskets of the second quarter, and then the Grizzlies went on a run, outsourcing the Royals 19-2 over the final seven minutes of the half.
Jackie Polk scored 10 of her game-high 20 points in the second quarter as Los Osos forced seven turnovers in the second quarter and turned many of them into fast-break points, many of them layups by Polk.
The Royals never got closer than seven points in the second half, and Los Osos seemed to put the game away with a 3-pointer by Hailey Estrada with 3:05 left that gave the Grizzlies a 53-37 lead. Estrada scored 18 points, 10 of which came in the fourth quarter.
One of their challenges was to slow down Louisville junior Taylor Westbrook, the tallest player on the floor. Westbrook had 15 rebounds, but scored only five points, all on second-half free throws.
“They did a great job of switching, hedging her and pushing her out of the paint where she likes to score,” Louisville coach Monica Hernandez said. “And they did a great job of speeding up the tempo on us defensively.”
Buckner wasn’t as pleased, feeling the Grizzlies allowed Westbrook too many rebounds.
“Believe it or not, we actually drilled boxing out,” Buckner said. “We’re definitely going to talk about that tomorrow. We definitely came up short in that aspect.”
It was a disappointing end to a solid season for the Royals, who moved up to Division 3AA after making the 3A quarterfinals last year and winning the 5A championship two years ago.
“We fouled them a lot, so they made a lot of free throws early,” Hernandez said. “That’s where all their points came from and then they just beat us to all the 50-50 balls. Then we stopped executing from there. They did a great job (on offense) of slowing the clock down. We like to play fast.”
Miye Kodama led the Royals with 13 points.
Buckner’s been in this position before and wants her team to appreciate the journey.
“I share with them our experience the first time, I share with them the (CIF championship) ring. (I say), ‘you guys enjoy it.’ And they are. They’re having a lot of fun,” Buckner said.
