Eagles fall in first round

COSTA MESA — Down 19 points at home, Coach Xavier Castellano told his Estancia High girls’ basketball team at halftime, “We’re OK. We’re OK.”

The Eagles looked far from being all right, more like scared.

JSerra returned to the court, coming out of the Estancia wrestling room. The Lions in the second half attacked like a pack of wrestlers.

They continued to corner whoever dared to touch the ball and pinned the Eagles into spots they never could recover from. Estancia tapped out, losing, 62-20, in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division IV-A playoffs Thursday night.

For Estancia, getting the ball past midcourt proved almost as difficult as returning to the playoffs.

“We haven’t been here in six years,” Castellano said. “They had no idea what they were getting into.”

Castellano, in his first year, tried his best to prepare the young Eagles (14-11) for the postseason. He recited his story, how he felt being called up to the Estancia boys’ varsity team for the playoffs as a junior in 1997.

Castellano pulled out all the coaching stunts before playing the No. 6-seeded Lions (18-9).

“I was just excited with jitterbugs,” he told them. “I was going to sit the bench, just to wear that varsity jersey in a game like that, it’s special.

“I think they started to get it [Wednesday] night before practice ended.”

Then the Eagles met the Lions out of the competitive Trinity League. A mauling ensued.

Eighty-six seconds into the second quarter, Estancia guard Kassie Stratton crashed face first. For a moment, she appeared to break JSerra’s full-court trap, but Erin Butler hammered her to the floor.

Stratton’s face stayed glued to the floor for a good minute before being helped to her feet. She was in pain, cried some. You couldn’t blame the sophomore if she had decided to stay down with JSerra ahead, 16-2.

The Lions were ferocious for the entire game.

JSerra was on its way to playing host to a second-round game Saturday. No team going 3-23 the season before was getting in the way.

“We thought if we applied pressure and had good rotation … we could have good success,” said JSerra Coach Mary Rossignol, who flipped open her cellphone to check who the Lions played next.

The text message read, “L.A. Baptist won, 68-44.”

“This is a young group I have,” said Rossignol, who has only one senior. “This is their first opportunity in [the] CIF playoffs. It took them awhile to adjust, but they did a good job.”

The younger Lions are more basketball savvy than the Eagles if you asked Castellano. That’s where the difference lies between these two programs lacking varsity experienced players.

The Eagles played without starting point guard Erika Soto (torn meniscus). They could’ve used her ball-handling ability, as JSerra forced so many turnovers the statisticians stopped counting.

Castellano said Soto is the toughest kid he’s ever seen.

“She begged us [to play],” said Castellano of Soto, who learned a day after the regular-season finale that she played with the knee injury without knowing the severity of it for most of the season. “Poor girl was in tears, begging.”

Soto dressed for the game and chose to stand rather than sit on the bench.

At one end of the bench you saw Castellano coaching, the other you saw Soto doing her best to support her teammates.

Most of the time, she put her thumb in her mouth. She couldn’t believe what was transpiring. The Eagles were on their way to recording their lowest point total of the season.

Four Eagles recorded one field goal each. JSerra guard Nichole Sandoval made six shots by herself and finished with 16 points, falling five points short of surpassing Estancia’s total.

“They were more talented than us,” Castellano said. “They never let up. That’s the kind of team they are. Those girls have been playing since they were young. They just want to win. That’s my goal [at Estancia], to get them to the point we’re competitive every night and they now know that we got to make the sacrifices and put in the time to be a team like that.

“I’m super proud of [my team]. We went from [winning] three games last year [to this].”

He’s more than OK with that turnaround.

CIF Southern Section Division IV-A playoffs First-round

JSerra 62, Estancia 20

SCORE BY QUARTERS

J – Sandoval 16, Butler 11, Klein 8, Coviello 8, Davidson 6, Reed 6, Ivar 4, Maben 3.

3-pt. goals – Butler 3, Coviello 2, Sandoval 2, Maben 1.

E – B. Soto 5, Boldizar 5, Maldonado 5, Martinez 3, Stratton 2.

3-pt. goals – Maldonado 1, Boldizar 1, Martinez 1.

Fouled out – None.