MSJC women's basketball team wins first state title

Members of the Mt. San Jacinto College women's basketball team celebrate their state championship. Photo courtesy of MSJC

Editor's note: This article is based on information provided by Mt. San Jacinto College and the California Community College Athletic Association website.

The Mt. San Jacinto College women's basketball team won its first state championship Sunday with an 81-52 victory over Merced College at Ventura College.

The Eagles (32-2) outscored the Blue Devils 20-3 in the third quarter to take control of the game and win the California Community College Athletic Association title. That was in stark contrast to the first half, when there were eight lead changes. Merced ended the season with a final record of 28-6.

The Eagles took the lead for good on Kalia Gower's put-back at the halftime buzzer. That kicked off a 17-point MSJC run. After enduring a nine-minute scoring drought, Merced scored its only points of the third quarter on a 3-pointer by Suzuna Shoji. By that time, the Eagles had a 50-33 lead and were on their way to victory.

Gower, a 5-foot-9 sophomore guard from Heritage High School, finished with game highs of 27 points and 17 rebounds. Britney Thomas, a 6-foot-2 sophomore forward from Mt. San Jacinto High, had 22 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists for the Pacific Coast Conference co-champions. Delacy Brown, a 5-foot-7 sophomore guard from Riverside Poly High, had 15 points, seven assists, and six rebounds in the finale after scoring 41 points in Mt. San Jacinto's 71-59 semifinal win over Northern California top seed Sierra. She was the tournament MVP.

The victory gave the Eagles the first CCCAA chammpionship in any team sport in school history.

"It's always the players that win the championship," said Mt. San Jacinto head coach Chris Mozga. "This is my 20th year as a coach in the CCCAA. It's taken a while, but I'm just so proud of them, fighting through adversity all season long and being ready to play, and that's the measure of what's made them so good this year. They're tough kids that will fight through some adversity, plus they're great players, obviously.

"We took care of the ball a little bit better in the third quarter. We had 11 turnovers at halftime, so that was obviously too many. I think they picked up their intensity, played a little better defense and went and got rebounds."

Brown and Thomas made the all-tournament team. The Eagles' only previous appearance in the championship game came in 2013, when they lost to Mt. San Antonio College. The MSJC men's basketball team finished as state runner-up in 1977 and 1999.