Paloma Valley's amazing two-year run comes to a close

Paloma Valley's Sydney Woodley drives toward the basket in the second half of Thursday's playoff game. (Photos: Menifee 24/7)

By Doug Spoon, Editor

CHULA VISTA -- It’s a bit much to call it the end of an era, but Thursday night’s girls basketball game here marked the conclusion of one of the best back-to-back seasons in Menifee high school sports history.

Paloma Valley High School’s Wildcats led a close game for a little more than a half against host Mater Dei Catholic but ran out of steam in the second half and lost, 60-45, in the CIF State Southern California Division 2AA Regional semifinals. The Wildcats came within one game of equaling last year’s finish – a SoCal Regional championship that might’ve led to a state title, had COVID-19 not intervened.

The Wildcats, who lost a 50-42 decision here in a nonleague game May 1, came out fast, taking a 6-0 lead on two Trinitee Bradley 3-pointers. Guard Mya Pierfax moved the ball effectively inside and outside, scored the team’s next three points, and Paloma Valley led 9-4 early.

Mater Dei (19-9) settled down and grabbed the lead for the first time at 12-11 on a driving layup by Kaylee Muckerman, but Paloma Valley (13-5) held fast and outscored the home team 11-2 to open a 22-14 lead midway through the second quarter. The Wildcats were clinging to a 28-26 lead at halftime.

Unfortunately for the visitors, there was a second half.

Led by the talented quartet of Teanna Alaman (17 points), Niala Mitchell (13 points, 10 rebounds), Asia Boone (12 points, 8 rebounds), and Kayanna Spriggs (11 points), the Crusaders used an aggressive defense to force turnovers, used their height advantage to dominate the boards, and scored consistently the rest of the way. Mater Dei Catholic led 42-36 at the end of three quarters and put the game away midway through the fourth, led by Spriggs and Alaman.

Paloma Valley’s Pierfax led all scorers with 18 points, followed by Bradley with 15 and Sydney Woodley with 10. Only one other Wildcat scored (Christianna Hawkins, with 2 points).

“We didn’t get it done offensively,” said Wildcats coach Matt Dale, last year’s state Coach of the Year. “We turned the ball over, we really didn’t run much stuff. As athletic as they are, you’ve got to execute.”

A height disadvantage didn’t help. Mater Dei Catholic’s Spriggs is 6-foot-3 and Mitchell is 6-foot. The Wildcats don’t have anyone that tall. On top of that, Paloma Valley once again had only seven available players with varsity experience. Junior Essynce Lewis sat out with a hip injury and sophomore Christianna Hawkins got in foul trouble early.

“We’re small already, and Essence was out,” Dale said. “It’s tough. I would’ve liked to see us play better offensively. But it is what it is. That’s a good team.

“The first half is how we thought it would go. We just got out of our game; we got a little bit careless through too many stretches.”

Granted, it was a strange season, with a late start and short schedule because of COVID-19. Even so, Paloma Valley won the Ivy League title with a perfect record and won seven straight before a loss to Eisenhower in the CIF Southern Section Division 2 finals. After that, the Wildcats rebounded with a stunning 12-point victory in Santa Maria against Righetti, the division’s No. 1 seed.

Winning playoff games on the road has been a strength of the Wildcats these last two years. In addition to road victories at Westlake and Righetti this postseason, they won at Citrus Valley, Whitney, Righetti, and Peninsula in a 2019-20 season in which they finished with a 34-3 overall record.

The trio of Pierfax (right), Woodley and Bradley, all seniors, is near impossible to replace. Pierfax scored 1,061 points over the last two seasons (19.6 ppg). Woodley, headed for Cal State Northridge, finished with 870 points over the last two seasons (15.8 ppg). Bradley finished with 527 points (9.6 ppg).

With those three players graduating, Dale will look to Lewis and Hawkins to lead a team that will feature a lot of new faces next season. Meanwhile, once the bitterness of this game wears off, there’s a lot of success for the current players to look back on.

“It’s a special group,” Dale said. “We have a special group of seniors. Right now, we’re bitterly disappointed. But when we look back at what we’ve accomplished the last two years, it’s something we can really be proud of.

"Next year? It’s hard to know. Obviously, when you lose the volume of scoring, playmaking, and size we lose with those three girls --- that’s a lot. We’re going to have to find … I don’t want to say a new way to play, but we’re going to have to find a whole new set of girls. We’ll adjust to what we have when next year comes.”