No. 3 Lathrop scored the first 10 points of it their NorCal Division IV semifinal tilt, only for No. 10 Benicia to battle back and take an eight-point second-quarter lead.
The Spartans righted the ship for a halftime tie thanks to a pair of consecutive 3-pointers by Faith Butler, and after six lead changes and three ties in the second half, the Spartans pulled away for a 55-48 win and a ticket to Yuba City to face No. 1 Faith Christian in the NorCal final on Tuesday night at 7.
“The whole game plan was to do what we had been doing,” Lathrop coach Dwayne Davis said. “To go high-low with a mismatch inside, but the guards decided to shoot. I’m not too upset with it, but I wish we would have stuck to our game plan a little bit longer.
“I was a little perturbed that we didn’t push the ball up the court, that we let them set up. We walked the ball up slow pace, but it’s a little hard to go too fast when you are letting them put the ball in the basket again and again. Once we were able to slow that run, Faith Butler came in and hit those 3-pointers, and that got us our juice back.”
In addition to those key buckets at the end of the first half, Butler forced a turnover on a held ball late in the game to thwart any chance of a comeback by Benicia (22-11).
“She is our Dennis Rodman,” Davis said of Butler. “We have her go crazy on the other team’s best player. And she does a good job of it.”
Butler finished with 12 points – all on 3-pointers.
“At the end the game it was really tight,” Butler said. “I tried to my best to defend their number zero, one of their shiftiest guards, and tie her up to get that jump ball.”
Shakara Porter scored 14 of her team-high 16 points for the Spartans in the first three quarters and finished with a double-double with 12 rebounds along with along with five steals and four assists.
“We try to come out strong,” Porter said. “And they had a reaction to it, but we came back better.
“And in the end, even if I wasn’t scoring, I tried to rebound and play defense because scoring points the most important thing.”
Jaleiyah Ray drained a 3-pointer with 1:44 left in the game to put the Lathrop (33-1) ahead 52-48. The Panthers would not score again.
“Everybody in the state tournament is going to be a challenging team, so we knew coming in it was going to be a tough game,” Ray said. “We knew we had to come in hard and with intensity and play really great defense, because defense wins games.”
Ray flirted with a double-double with 12 points and nine rebounds along with three steals and an assist. Breanna Wiseman added eight points and nine rebounds.
Benicia’s Ella Lum led all scorers with 17 points with teammate Kennedy Conway adding 12 points.
