Pirates open State Tourney play against Folsom Lake

COSTA MESA -- Orange Coast College's quest for a third consecutive state title has made its way to its final destination ... Mt. San Antonio College ... home of the 3C2A Women's Basketball State Championships. The back-to-back state champion Pirates will take on Folsom Lake College in the state quarterfinals, beginning at 1 p.m. at Mt. SAC.

"It means so much for us to be back at the State Elite 8," OCC head coach Sammy Doucette said.  "This team has overcome and grown so much this year."

After starting the season retooling from last year's 30-3 championship squad and losing a pair of key players due to preseason injuries, the Pirates (25-5) shrugged off the negativity and went out won the Orange Empire Conference for the third year in a row and played two of their best games of the season, topping Irvine Valley (79-55) and Cerro Coso (86-36) to earn their invitation to this weekend's big dance.

There have been heroes all around for the Pirates this year, but during the playoffs, sophomore Hailey Estrada has found another gear. After putting up 15 points, seven rebounds, eight assists and four steals against IVC in the second round of the players, she went off for 29 points, four rebounds, nine assists and five steals in the blowout win over the Coyotes in the third round. 

OCC's starting five of Estrada, Melaiah Joseph, Alyssa Dreessen, Zoie Lamkin and Myia Collins have all had solid playoff performances and for Doucette, it needs to stay that way from here on out. "The key for us is to stay bought in to who we are collectively are and how we got here," Doucette said. "We don't need anyone to be a hero or change their game. We need to be the best TEAM on the floor and stay locked in for the full 40 minutes."

Coast has six players -- the aforementioned starting five as well as standout sixth player, Kayla Borgelt -- who can take over a game at any time, so trying to stop this squad is no easy task. Joseph leads the scoring at 13.4 points per game in a photo finish with Lamkin (13.3), Dreessen (13.1), Collins (11.1) and Estrada (10.1). Borgelt, who averages 7.6 points per game has reached double figures 10 different times, including a 25-point performance against highly-ranked Mt. San Jacinto earlier this year.

For the Folsom Lake Falcons (25-5), they are one of three teams from the Big 8 Conference among the four Northern California clubs in the state tournament, joining conference champ San Joaquin Delta (22-8) and Sierra (25-4). After a couple of home losses to Sierra and Delta down the stretch, the Falcons bounced back with two dominant performances against Chabot (89-46) and No. 2-seeded San Jose (78-53) to earn a trek down to Mt. SAC.

Much like the Pirates, the Falcons have several steady scorers to deal with, including sophomore guard/forward Athena Brombacher, who leads the way averaging 12.7 points per game, followed closely by freshman Lexi Peters (11.6 ppg) and sophomore Gianna Darte (10.5).

For FLC, it's more about the quantity of players the Falcons can throw at their opponents with 10 different players averaging 17 minutes per game on average.  The Falcons enter Friday's game fourth in the state in scoring 79.2 points per game, with OCC 12th at 72.1 ppg.

The winner of Friday's game will take on the winner of the Glendale/San Juaquin Delta matchup on Saturday at Mt. SAC, beginning at 5 p.m.

Three more wins for the Pirates puts the program in the highest of categories. Only twice in the history of the state championship has a team won three straight with Ventura going back-to-back-to-back in 2000-2002 and Mt. San Antonio did a 3-peat from 2006-08.

"To win this thing for a third straight year, we need to give our best effort on both sides of the floor, because we will definitely be getting our opponent's," Doucette said. "We are the only team chasing three in a row. We are not like anyone else in the Elite 8 this year. They all have something in common ... we don't. It's quite literally everyone vs OCC."