The rebuilding Los Alamitos girls basketball team more than held their own last week in the top-ranked Gold Division of the El Toro Thanksgiving Classic tourney, going 2-2 and battling four highly ranked Orange County teams down to the wire, including an epic three-overtime victory over Portola, currently ranked No. 7 in Orange County.
With a few different bounces here and there, the young Griffins could have finished 4-0; they defeated Portola 78-69 and Pacifica Christian 53-34. Their two losses were very close games, a 56-60 contest with JSerra (6-2), currently ranked by the Register newspaper as No. 5 in Orange County, and a competitive 51-57 loss to Beckman (3-3). Each of those games were an open question until the final moments of the fourth quarters and could have gone either way.
The rebuilding Griffins (3-3) lost three key players to graduation, last season’s Co-MVPs of the Surf League, point guard Kali Liew and center Kassidy Beach, and All-League guard Megan Lee. However, two returning starters, senior center Bryn Pagett and All-League junior guard Tam Yoshida, as well as last season’s first-player-off-the-bench, junior Maya Asumbrado, all stepped up with career highs in this competitive tournament.
The thrilling three-overtime victory over Portola (3-5) on Tuesday, November 26, was even more impressive because the Griffins were playing a back-to-back game after a hard-fought last-minute loss to JSerra the night before; Portola had not played a game in three days and was rested. However, in the third overtime, it appeared that the Griffins had all the energy and quickly overwhelmed Portola 14-5 in the final four-minute frame.
Within the first minute of the third overtime, Tam Yoshida, who was selected to the All-Tournament Team, scored 5 points on two free throws and a three pointer from three feet beyond the top of the circle, and then soon after she added a two-point jumper from the left side and assisted on the first of two threes by Maya Asumbrado. A free throw by freshman point guard Maile Heng rounded out the scoring run.
Overall, Yoshida and Asumbrado combined to score a whopping 57 points; Yoshida scored 29 and Asumbrado scored 28, both career highs. Pagett pulled down a dominating 20 rebounds, which also is her career high. Yoshida had 3 threes and Asumbrado hit a net-burning 8 threes, another career high.
In the 53-34 victory over Pacifica Christian (3-3) on Saturday, November 30, Tam Yoshida scored 20 points and grabbed 7 rebounds to go along with 3 assists and 2 steals. Torri Yoshida, Tam’s freshman sister, chipped in 12 points and five rebounds, and Maya Asumbrado added 10 points and 3 assists.
“This Gold Division tournament was a great learning experience because the competition was so strong that everyone had to step up and compete hard in every game,” said Coach Maya De Anda. “It took a total team effort and that’s how we are going to continue to improve.”