SANTA ANA – Santa Ana’s girls basketball team made only one of its 15 shots in the third quarter, which ended with the Saints staring at a five-point deficit.
The fourth quarter would belong to them.
The Saints scored the first nine points of the fourth quarter and went on to beat Estancia 39-37 on Wednesday in a CIF Southern Section Division 5A semifinal playoff game.
Santa Ana (16-16) will play Price (14-2) in the 5A championship game Saturday at 7 p.m. at Price High School in Los Angeles. Price defeated Workman 60-41 in the other semifinal.
It is the first CIF-SS championship game for the Santa Ana girls basketball program. CIF-SS girls basketball championships began in 1974.
The season will continue next week for Estancia (15-13). The Eagles qualified for the CIF Southern California Regional playoffs by advancing to the semifinals. The regional brackets will be released Sunday.
Estancia and Santa Ana had played each other twice before in Orange Coast League games. Estancia won at Santa Ana; Santa Ana won at Estancia. Santa Ana finished third and Estancia was fourth in the six-team league.
Santa Ana senior guard Janessa Roa scored a game-high 17 points in the Saints’ 39-37 win over Estancia in a @CIFSS 5A semifinal. Santa Ana plays at Price/LA in the final Saturday @ocvarsityguy @ocvarsity pic.twitter.com/0LC5uzDOh5
— Steve Fryer (@SteveFryer) February 24, 2022
Estancia outscored Santa Ana 10-4 in the third quarter to take a 29-24 lead into the fourth.
Santa Ana third-year coach Tony Jarjoura had something to say during the break between the third and fourth quarters.
“I told them straight up, ‘It’s yours if you want it,’ ” Jarjoura said. “And they just came out and took it.”
Within the first 75 seconds of the fourth quarter the Saints’ Lucila Medina scored on an inside bank shot, Janessa Roa snagged an offensive rebound, passed the ball to Yarexy Diaz who returned it to Roa for another basket, Roa followed with with a layup in traffic and the Saints had a 31-29 lead.
Santa Ana’s Ashley Silva made a 4-foot jump shot to make it 33-29 with 4:57 left in the game. Estancia would get closer, 37-34, when Carolina Meza converted a three-point play with 2:13 to go. Roa and Elizabeth Agama made one free throw each in the final 1:32, two points that would be the margin of victory.
Roa, a senior guard, finished with a game-high 17 points including two 3-pointers. Freshman guard Diaz scored eight points, junior forward Medina scored 7 points and senior guard Silva scored six with six rebounds.
Senior forward Halle Broadnax did not score but had a team-high 10 rebounds and was a steady ball-handler when the Saints faced Estancia’s trapping defense.
Estancia senior guard Mackenzie Sanchez scored eight points, including two 3s, and had a game-high 11 rebounds. Sanchez is 5-foot-1, so all of her rebounds came from scrambling for position and fighting for the ball.
Eagles senior guard Liz Sanchez scored eight points and senior guard Alexis Orellana scored six points.
Santa Ana had a 7-6 lead at the end of the first quarter. The teams traded the lead a few times in the second quarter that ended with the Saints again ahead by a point, 20-19. Roa scored nine points in that quarter.