APTOS — The Aptos High Mariners pride themselves on defense, smart passes and 3-point shooting.
When they do all three to the best of their ability, well…
“Ahhhh! There’s no feeling like it,” said Aptos junior wing Abby Pardue. “We’re like a freight train.”
Choo-Choo!
Next stop: the Central Coast Section Division III championship game.
Pardue scored a game-high 22 points on 6-of-10 shooting from deep, junior guard Hannah Hocom added 18 points and played tough defense on Saratoga High’s top guard and the No. 2-seeded Mariners cruised by the No. 6-seeded Falcons, 61-47, on Wednesday night to return to the D-III final.
There will be no rematch of last year’s championship.
Instead, Aptos (25-3) will play top-seeded South San Francisco High — a 62-40 winner over Soquel High — on Saturday in a rematch of last year’s meeting in the semifinal round.
The game is scheduled for a 5 p.m. tip-off at Independence High in San Jose.
The Mariners, then the No. 5 seed playing No. 1, won last year’s game en route to the program’s first section crown since 1983.
“To get back there is amazing,” said Aptos sophomore guard Gabby Giuffre. “Just the thought of getting there one year and getting to do that again, it’s incredible. It’s not something that everyone gets to do.”
Giuffre chipped in 12 points, four rebounds, four steals and eight assists for the Mariners, who broke the game open in the second quarter behind Giuffre’s precision passes and Hocom’s 11 points.
Aptos led 41-24 at the half, and thrusted the dagger into the heart of the Falcons’ (22-6) season behind Pardue’s hot shooting in the third. She scored 11 in the frame by swishing three 3-pointers.
The Mariners were up 59-30 by the start of the fourth.
“If we’re doing what we know how to do, making 3s, stealing the ball,” Hocom said, “I think it’s going to take a really good team to beat us.”
Hocom had the defensive assignment on Saratoga’s quick and rangy freshman guard Jane Loo, who powered the Falcons in their upset over No. 3 Seaside High in Saturday’s quarterfinal round.
Loo’s pull-up jumper early in the second quarter made it a six-point game, but Hocom held her scoreless the rest of the night and Saratoga struggled mightily from there.
Aptos’ suffocating man-to-man defense forced several turnovers and its offense produced in transition and behind the arc.
“It was a tough assignment but Hannah did a great job on her,” said Aptos head coach Stefan Hocom — Hannah’s father. “They just never got it going because we took their guards out of it.”
Coach Hocom said the gameplan heading into Saturday’s championship is up in the air, because of an injury to South San Francisco’s star wing Brittney Cedeno. The 5-foot-9 senior headed to NCAA Division I Cal Baptist on a scholarship missed the Warriors’ quarterfinal game on Wednesday night with an ankle injury she suffered in practice.
Whether she’ll play in the championship or not is still up in the air.
Cedeno’s absence didn’t make much of a difference against Soquel, as the Warriors pressed the life out of the Knights and had multiple players in double-figures.
“She’s a terrific player. She’s tough,” coach Hocom said of Cedeno. “It’ll be a tough game with her or without her.”
Aptos forward Abbi Saxton, the team’s lone senior, grabbed a team-high 15 rebounds.
She and sophomore center Rylee Mennie held the fort in the first quarter after 6-foot-1 sophomore center Natalia Ackerman picked up two quick fouls and was forced to take a seat.
Saxton’s spot-up 3-pointer midway through the first put Aptos up 16-4.
The Falcons clawed their way back with a quick 8-0 run, but Giuffre heaved in a buzzer-beating shot from half court at the end of the first quarter and Aptos made it a no-contest over the next two.
“When pressure is on that’s kind of when I’m at my best,” Giuffre said of her half-court make, explaining that she makes maybe two of 50 during the week of practice. “I guess that’s when I should be shooting them.”
There were rumblings around the CCS that Aptos might be bumped up to the Open Division heading into the section’s seeding meeting two week ago, but the Mariners were not only left down in D-III, they were given the No. 2 seed behind South San Francisco.
Winners of their last 12 games with a spot in the upcoming CIF NorCal playoffs in their back pocket, the Mariners said they can’t wait until Saturday.
“Open would’ve been a really nice challenge, but you can’t be unhappy about having a chance at a championship,” Hocom said.
