East Union’s girls basketball team could not get untracked offensively in its Sac-Joaquin Section Division III semifinal Wednesday at Lincoln, scoring just three points in the opening quarter en route to a 55-40 loss.

The second-seeded Fighting Zebras (27-2) of Placer County won their 20th consecutive game and faces powerhouse Vanden (24-3) in the title round starting 2 p.m. Saturday at Golden 1 Center. No. 1 Vanden routed No. 4 84-52 in its semifinal. It will be Lincoln’s first SJS final for girls basketball.

“You always want to get off to a good start, especially in a playoff game on the road,” East Union coach Jim Agostini said. “We just couldn’t get our game going to where they had to use a momentum timeout. We just couldn’t put multiple back-to-back scoring possessions together.

The Lancers (23-4) trailed 22-13 at halftime and by as much as 17 late in the third quarter. They could not get shots to fall despite getting open looks against Lincoln’s 2-3 zone defense. 

Taylor Snaer led them with 15 points, while post partners Andie Carnigal-Holmes and Ala Tu’uga each had eight.

Standout power forward Katie Leethe paced Lincoln with 18 points. Maya Hodge finished with 15, and Madison Barr-Zeltvay had 10.

“Teams that play close to their normal game has a pretty good chance of winning, and I would say that played out tonight,” Agostini said. “They were close to their normal game, and we weren’t. Credit them for that.”

East Union’s season continues next week with its second appearance in the California Interscholastic Federation NorCal Regionals. The Lancers will find out their placement Sunday.

“I told our seniors that the good news is we’re going to play some more,” Agostini said. “This ain’t it. Hopefully, we can give a team a better punch than we did tonight.”