5th grade girls win the championship

From Left to Right Jamie, Kaela, Michaela, Miles, Ivy, Lily, Randy, Christine, Becky and Cecilia. The 5th Grade Girls won the championship Monday night.

The 5th grade girls showed why they were a championship team Monday night at Mission Dolores.

With Kaela, doubled, tripled, and at times quadrupled team for the bulk of the game, her teammates stepped up and delivered a clutch performance in a gut-wrenching 9-4 championship win.

Clinging to a 6-4 lead with under a minute left in the game, the girls crashed the offensive boards and Michaela scored on a putback which sealed the title. She was also fouled and hit the free throw to give the girls a 5 point lead.

The 5th grade then held on defensively for the next 46 seconds and as the buzzer sounded, Kaela ran to the bench to give her dad Randy, the 5th grade coach, a huge hug. And as father and daughter embraced, the rest of the girls and coaches jumped for joy as they had just made history, becoming the first St. Mary's team to go undefeated in the current St. Mary's Athletics era.

West Portal had a gameplan and stuck to it, pressuring Kaela to no end. They threw at least two girls on her at all times, not giving her any room to operate.

When it was all said and done, Kaela was held scoreless for the first time this season, shocking to say the least.

If anybody would've picked the 5th graders to win Monday night with Kaela being left off the scoresheet, you would've looked at them like they were delusional.

But Kaela, being the player she is, found other ways to contribute to the team and it began early in the 2nd quarter.

With all five girls on defense converging on Kaela, she dumped it down to Becky in the low block who banked in a shot to start the scoring. The girls finally felt that they were in the game.

Then later in the quarter, Kaela drove left, and again with the entire West Portal team collapsing towards her, Lily was left wide open by the basket and all Kaela had to do was find her and she did. Lily caught the zip pass from Kaela and banked it in to give the girls a two point lead.

Lily followed that up with a putback shot off a rebound that extended the 5th grade's lead to 6-2 going into halftime.

A bucket by West Portal early in the third made it 6-4, but that was the extent of the scoring for the better part of the second half.

From that point forward, it didn't look like anybody wanted to win the game. Both teams were not taking care of the ball, and committed turnovers possession after possession.

On the rare occasion they got a good look at the basket, they were unable to convert.

Even though it was a two point lead for the St. Mary's girls, there was a feeling that the next basket was going to win the game. And luckily, Michaela came through at the right time.

Her basket, followed by a free throw with 46 seconds left pretty much put the game on ice, since 3 pointers don't count in the 5th grade.

It was an auspicious start to the game for the girls as they looked tense and nervous the entire 1st quarter. The pressure of playing in a championship definitely gave them the jitters, because the 5th grade played extremely cautious and tentative. They didn't have any jump in their step and were a good step slower than their normal selves.

They were fast breaking all over the place in their playoff game Saturday, but in Monday night's game, they were very station to station with Michaela or Kaela slowly walking the ball up the floor for most of the game.

Offensively, they just didn't have it but luckily their stellar defense did enough to get the job done.

This was the only time the entire year the 5th grade was held to single digits.

After the game, Kaela showed why she is the definition of a team player, and had no problem she didn't score in the championship.

"I did it with my teammates," Kaela said. "That's the best part. We all worked together to win."

From top to bottom, every girl in the white jersey had a helping hand in the win. The Twins, Christine and Cecilia were their aggressive selves on defense.

Ivy was causing trouble defensively as she always does with her hustle.

Becky and Lily had some huge buckets in the first half and Michaela put it away at the end.

What a remarkable story for a team put together late in February. For them to come together in a span of a few months is nothing short of remarkable.

In the team huddle late in the game, Randy looked at the girls, and told them, "If you want it, you gotta go get it."

The 5th grade girls got it.