Gritty win gives 7th grade the third seed

The five girls on the 7th grade team left CYO Serramonte tougher than when they walked in.

Up against a team that was physically imposing to say the least, the girls won convincingly 19-10, clinching the third seed in their division. At (5-3), they will play the number two seed in the playoffs.

Cynthia, who took a hard foul to the face in the first half, played with a lot of emotion and really stuck it down the other team's throat, with an inspiring 10 point performance.

On several occasions, she drove by the other team right to the basket to lay it up and in.

Their opponent Saturday was rugged, very physical and not fundamentally sound. In many ways it was hardly basketball, because it got rough out there, and borderline nasty.

In the 1st quarter, Julia went for a loose ball at half court when out of nowhere a girl on the other team looked like she was on skates, hip checking Julia into the crowd.

Somehow, Julia bounced right back up and was okay to continue.

Since both teams had trouble spacing out on the small CYO Serramonte court, there were a lot of jump balls, a lot of elbows and a lot of slapping.

It soon became a battle of wills instead of a clean basketball game.

But the 7th grade girls didn't back down from the challenge and were able to adjust to that type of game. They were just as physical at times and weren't going to be pushed around, which frustrated the other team.

Even when a lot of the fouls were being let go, the 7th graders kept their composure and continued to play their game.

Leading 13-6 after three quarters, the girls put it away in the fourth on two straight Cynthia lay-ups.

It was a very gutsy performance by Cynthia who played fearlessly throughout the game even though you could tell on her face she wasn't feeling 100%. Her face was flushed because of the contact she had been taking, but you couldn't tell by the way she played.

She still drove to the basket relentlessly, drawing fouls and on many occasions, scoring.

Up next for the girls is a playoff date against a team they forfeited against earlier in the season.

In five regular season games that the girls have played, they have only lost once, and that was against the undefeated top team in the division.

Melina, who grabbed a lot of tough rebounds down low despite getting hammered, scored 5 points. Tiffany scored the first 2 points of the game.

Julia shot at her own basket in the 4th quarter and luckily missed, but the other team gathered the miss shot and put it in for 2 points. Julia did hit a free throw in the game.

In one of the weirder moments in recent CYO history, Amy was awarded a total of 4 free throws, since someone in the crowd made noise on her first attempt.

Even after the referee notified the crowd that there was no noise to be made, someone decided to "cough" on the next attempt. Luckily Amy did hit her final free throw for her only bucket of the game.