Wiley-Gatewood Makes Lynwood Tough to Beat

Lynwood won its third consecutive Southern Section girls’ basketball title Friday, defeating Long Beach Poly for the second year in a row, 69-63, in the Division I-AA final behind junior Sade Wiley-Gatewood’s 20 points, four steals and three assists.

With the graduation of some key players after last season, this is clearly Wiley-Gatewood’s team.

“I like being a leader for this team,” she said. “I just want to get my [teammates] involved. I just want to win.”

The victory over the Jackrabbits wasn’t as close as the score indicated. Lynwood led, 54-37, going into the fourth quarter before easing up in the final eight minutes.

“I prefer a close game,” Wiley-Gatewood said. “I’d rather have a competitive game than a blowout. Nobody wants to watch a blowout. I don’t even want to watch a blowout.”

Lynwood has won 18 games this season by 20 points or more.

One person especially happy after beating Poly was Kameca Simmons, a senior who transferred this season to Lynwood after playing for Poly last season. Lynwood beat Simmons and Poly, 53-50, in last year’s championship game.

Said Wiley-Gatewood after Saturday’s victory, in which Simmons scored 13 points with three assists: “That was on her mind from the first day she got to Lynwood. I told her we got it taken care of. She’s in [the locker room] crying right now.”

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Lynwood, Fullerton Troy and Torrance Bishop Montgomery were the top-seeded teams for the Southern California regionals, which begin Tuesday, when the state playoff pairings were released Sunday.

Lynwood is going for its second Division I state title and Bishop Montgomery is going for its fourth in a row in Division III.

Lynwood, the No. 1 team in the Southland in The Times’ final regular-season rankings, could meet fourth-seeded and third-ranked Long Beach Poly (28-3) in the second round.

Second-seeded Harbor City Narbonne (22-6) could play host to fourth-seeded San Clemente (27-3), which must first get past the team that beat it in last year’s first round, Oceanside El Camino (26-4).

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The Southern Section Division II-AA was regarded as the toughest in the Southland, with 10 league champions in the 32-team field. Troy’s victory over Perris, 82-45, in the final was the 300th in Coach Kevin Kiernan’s career.

Kiernan coached five years at Westminster La Quinta and won a championship in his last season, 1990, in Division IV-A. He has spent the last seven seasons at Troy, been to the finals five of the last six years, and won a title in 2001.

His overall record is 300-49 (86%), 188-25 at Troy (88.3%).

On Saturday, Perris’ Arizona-bound Shannon Hobson believed her team could have won had it “come out stronger.”

Unlikely. At one point in the second quarter, Perris had shot 50% from the field (seven of 14) and trailed, 35-19. Troy made 10 of 13 shots in the first quarter and four of its first six in the second quarter.

Both teams had nine turnovers in the first half, yet Troy led, 44-24. Troy shot 57.4% (27 of 47) for the game, led by UCLA-bound Amanda Livingston, who made 10 of 14 shots and scored 24 points.

“I don’t think they were going to beat us [Saturday],” Kiernan said. “We had everything going.”

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Sophomore Jen Rogers saved Santa Ana Mater Dei in its 43-39 victory over Redondo, scoring 26 points -- including 16 in a row -- to key a rally from 14 points down with less than two minutes left in the third quarter. But it was Chanel Foster who put Mater Dei ahead with 2:06 to play after a steal and layup, and Christina Lopez’s layup provided the game-deciding points with 1:23 to go, capping a 19-2 run. Most impressive was that Mater Dei won even though Ashley Voisinet, who averaged 14.1 points, didn’t score....

After playing her fifth game at the Pyramid, scoring 29 points and dishing eight assists in a 64-40 victory over Del Rey League rival La Puente Bishop Amat, Noelle Quinn of Torrance Bishop Montgomery said, “This is just like another gym to me.” Quinn is 4-1 at the Pyramid, 3-1 in section championship games....

Garland Cooper, who will attend Northwestern to play shortstop in softball, was four of six from the field and scored 10 points for Santa Margarita in its 57-55 loss to Artesia. She also had 12 rebounds. “For a softball player, we get a lot of mileage out of her,” said Coach Rich Schaaf....

Ashlee Trebilcock of Newhall Hart has played alongside San Clemente’s Lindsey Pluimer in travel ball. After Pluimer scored 24 points in a 68-38 rout of Hart, Trebilcock summed up her team’s play: “It was over from the warmups. We came out star-struck, and you can’t do anything about 6-3 [Pluimer’s height]. She’s pretty good, but we didn’t even make her show how good she really is.”