Field-Polisso leads team to 58-52 win over Bruins
By Pete Borello, Town Crier Staff Writer
 Photo by Todd Shurtleff/MaxPreps.com The Pinewood School girls basketball team, above, celebrates winning the state Division V championship Saturday at Arco Arena in Sacramento. |
SACRAMENTO - Maybe after Pacific Hills watches the game film it will better understand - and appreciate - the impact Pinewood’s Sami Field-Polisso had in the state Division V high school girls basketball final.
The Bruins may see more clearly how Field-Polisso’s driving, dishing and scoring led the Panthers to a 58-52 win Saturday morning at Arco Arena.
Apparently, the junior’s 14-point, seven-assist performance didn’t sink in right after the game. Perhaps the team from West Hollywood had trouble believing Field-Polisso could be this good in her first season at point guard. When these teams met in last year’s state title game, won 61-39 by Pinewood, Field-Polisso played shooting guard. She made the switch after projected starter Tika Koshiyama-Diaz suffered a knee injury over the summer.
Pacific Hills coach Tony Jimenez made no excuses for defending Field-Polisso “man straight up” throughout Saturday’s game. Bruins guard Bree Richardson seemed to be in a state of denial as she and several teammates fought back tears in the postgame press conference.
“She’s a good point guard; she did her job,” said the freshman standout and daughter of UCLA great Pooh Richardson. “But she didn’t break us down or anything.”
The film will show otherwise.
There’s Field-Polisso pulling up for a 3-pointer at the top of the key early in the first quarter to put Pinewood ahead 7-2. There she is in the second quarter slashing to the basket, then zipping a pass into the right corner to Grace Beck for a trey and a 19-13 lead. There’s Field-Polisso starting the third quarter with a layin off a turnover and ending it with a drive-and-dish play to an open Aly Geppert for a point-blank basket, giving the Panthers a 43-30 advantage.
If that’s not enough, the fourth quarter will show overwhelming video evidence.
There’s Field-Polisso moving without the ball to get open under the hoop, resulting in her scoring an easy two to put Pinewood up 45-32 just 25 seconds in. Fast forward to the 4:14 mark and there she is drawing the fifth foul on Pacific Hills center Ashleyrose Lewis, who went to the bench with a team-high 13 points. Field-Polisso sunk both free throws, providing the Panthers (24-9) with their biggest lead at 49-33.
Zip ahead two minutes, and there’s Field-Polisso making perhaps the biggest basket of the game. With the lead down to 11, she dribbled past speedy Bruins guard Melodie Puente to convert a layin despite getting fouled.
“I was determined to get to the basket,” said Field-Polisso, who celebrated the shot with a pump of her fist and a big smile. “That was my goal and I was going to get there.”
The ensuing free throw extended Pinewood’s lead to 56-42 with 2:03 remaining. That was more than Pacific Hills (30-3) could overcome, though it made things interesting with a 10-2 run to end the game. The Panthers helped out by missing four of their six free throws down the stretch.
Pinewood led almost the entire way Saturday. The Panthers trailed just once, at 2-1, but soon erased that deficit when Liz Altmaier completed a 3-point play after scoring on a drive. Pinewood led 14-6 at the end of the initial quarter, closing with a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer by Hannah Lippe and a fastbreak layup by Geppert.
Senior forward Lippe finished with 14 points, tying Field-Polisso with team-high honors despite fouling out with 3:18 to go. Most of Lippe’s points came inside, including back-to-back baskets in the third quarter set up by Field-Polisso passes.
“Sami has such great vision,” said Lippe, who had eight rebounds and blocked two shots, “and she knows someone’s going to be going to the basket.”
Such as Geppert, who totaled 11 points. The sophomore center also grabbed 18 rebounds and blocked three shots, both game highs. Wing players Altmaier and Beck added eight points each.
The Panthers’ team totals weren’t all that impressive: they were out-rebounded 30-12 on the offensive end and committed 25 turnovers to the Bruins’ 12.
“The game was not a pretty piece of work,” Pinewood coach Doc Scheppler said after guiding Pinewood to its third state crown in seven years. “A lot of these (championship) games are won ugly, but that trophy looks awfully pretty.”
The Bruins’ shooting was especially ugly, undermining all those extra possessions. Despite taking 30 more shots, Pacific Hills made one less field goal than Pinewood. The Panthers shot an efficient 19 of 44 from the field (43.2 percent); the Bruins were a chilly 18 of 74 (24.3). No player struggled more than Richardson, who scored four points on 2-of-16 shooting.
“We never got a chance to play our game,” Jimenez said. “We committed a lot of fouls, and the intensity at the beginning was not there.”
That was not the case for Pinewood. The Panthers had a great week of practice leading up to the game, according to Scheppler, and their back-door and high-screen plays couldn’t have worked much better Saturday.
“We got easy baskets; that’s what it’s about in games like this,” Scheppler said. “That’s where we won the game.”
The Panthers, the second seed in the North, end the season on a nine-game winning streak. Pacific Hills, the top seed from the South, saw its 19-game winning streak come to an end.
Both teams will lose multiple starters to graduation, though Pinewood returns key players Field-Polisso, Geppert, Beck and Koshiyama-Diaz.
