The Los Alamitos High School Girls Varsity Basketball team reignited its season by winning three straight games and making it to the championship game at the 2022 Santa Ana Elks Classic tournament before falling to San Clemente High School in a competitive and close game.
The short-handed Griffins (6-6) trailed San Clemente (12-3) by only 1 point at the half, 22-21, and by only 4 points, 36-32, at the end of three quarters before fading in the fourth quarter to lose 45-36.
In the Saturday, December 17, championship game played at Segerstrom High School, the Griffins’ leading scorers were junior point guard Kayli Liew with 13 points, including 3 threes, and junior center Kassidy Beach with 9 points.
Over the four games, Liew averaged 19.3 points per game, including making 13 threes, and was named the team MVP for the tournament. Beach averaged nearly a double-double for the tourney, scoring 10.3 points and grabbing 9 rebounds per game to go along with 1.3 blocks per game.
Freshman Melanie Stewart and sophomore Bryn Pagett each grabbed an average of 6 rebounds a game.
The Griffins played the championship game without their second leading scorer, junior Emie Fell, who in the four-game tournament was averaging 11 points and 3 threes a game before being injured in the Griffins’ 51-45 semi-final victory over Tesoro High School (10-4).
The Griffins had entered the tournament with a 3-5 record, but quickly got in sync and reached the championship game by defeating Segerstrom, Mayfair, and Tesoro high schools.
The Varsity Griffins next play a home game on Friday, December 23, at 2 p.m., against California High School. The Freshman and Junior Varsity teams play at 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. respectively.
