The third time was a charm for East Union.
Twice in recent years, the Lancers faced Lincoln in Placer County and lost both semifinal match-ups.
Thursday night at Dalben Center, third-seeded East Union got the No. 6 Fighting Zebras on its home court, and following a close first half pulled away for a 45-36 quarterfinal win in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III girls basketball playoffs. The Lancers not only advance to the SJS semifinals for the third time in four years, but also qualify for NorCals.
“It was good to play them again and get them on our home court,” East Union coach Jim Agostini said. “In ’22, we went there and lost, and in ’23, we went there and lost. We were excited to play here, and our foot has been on the pedal since the first Mountain House game – this makes 12 in a row for us. We couldn’t lose any games to get where we are, and we finally got to this game and we just wanted to stack possessions – stack offensive possessions with good defensive sets.
“Our guards up front worked their tails off, and the bigs down low did their part. It was truly a team effort. We talk about doing the little things all the time. We don’t have to be perfect, but we need to chase perfection, because something great might come out of it.”
And something great did come out of it Thursday night. The Lancers (23-6) forced 21 turnovers, with Ava Barrera leading the East Union charge with 11 points, 13 rebounds, five steals and three assists.
Barrera had a rough first half with just two points and numerous close misses, but she gave the Lancers a much-needed boost out of the gate in the third quarter with a pair of quick buckets off of assists from Haven Stone, and a steal Barrera converted into a coast-to-coast, three-point play.
“To start the second half we were only up by a point,” Barrera said. “And I wanted to extend that lead to get a little more comfortable.
“Our defensive has been really aggressive, and we have been working on that. We want to force turnovers.”
Stone helped the defensive effort with three steals to go with her nine points and four assists.
“Our energy was there and when we were struggling offensively our defense picked it up,” Stone said.
Julianna Gaspar scored all eight of her points in the second half and posted five steals and two rebounds.
“We put in a lot of work on defense at practice, and it shows in the games when we have each other’s backs,” Gaspar said.
With Lincoln still close, trailing 39-35 with 2 minutes, 50 seconds left in the game, Agostini called time out and following that intermission the Fighting Zebras (20-10) managed just one more point. In the final minute Shebra Rezaye nabbed a rebound, a steal and made a pair of free throws.
“Defense was nails,” Agostini said. “I thought we had them on their heels for the whole game. Our bigs did what we had to do against their big, and she only got four points where she had been averaging 12 to 14 points a game.
“We talked at halftime about how we were getting the looks we wanted to and not to panic and that we would finish those shots in the second half.”
One of the bigs that got the job done for East Union was Zyondupree Beasley with eight points, eight rebounds and five steals.
Taylor Hodge scored 13 points for the Fighting Zebras and earned high-point honors while Isa Keidel added 10 points.
Before NorCals, the Lancers have a semifinal road tilt on Tuesday in Shingle Springs against No. 2 Ponderosa at 7 p.m.
