SANTA ANA – She didn’t even want to be there.
El Dorado sophomore Brianna Aluya had already missed two free throws in the second half and the two she made were banked in unintentionally. But after a scramble for the ball in the final seconds with the Golden Hawks tied on the road against Foothill on Friday night, the ball bounced to her and she was fouled with nine-tenths of a second left.
In the double bonus, she would get two free throws, only needing one to win.
“I was wishing somebody else would have to shoot,” Aluya said. “It was nerve-wracking.”
With the Foothill crowd at its loudest, the first free throw looked a lot like the previous four, bouncing hard off the left side of the rim and away from the basket. The second, however, was pure. It touched nothing but net and gave eighth-ranked El Dorado a crucial 42-41 Crestview League win.
As her teammates swarmed her, after Foothill’s halfcourt heave went off the mark, Aluya awkwardly shrugged them off, obviously uncomfortable with the spotlight.
“After banking the others in, that was just amazing,” El Dorado coach Wayne Carlson said. “I mean, that’s basketball. The difference between winning and losing is so small in a game like that.”
It was a fitting finish to an odd game, which turned strangely when standout El Dorado guard Brooke Salas fouled out with 6:05 remaining. The Golden Hawks (15-6, 1-1) led, 36-27, at the time – and Salas finished with a game-high 15 points, seven steals and six rebounds – but El Dorado did not make another shot from the floor the rest of the game.
Instead, the Golden Hawks made six free throws down the stretch, continued to play lockdown defense and never allowed the No. 3 Knights (16-3, 1-1) to take the lead.
The Golden Hawks’ defense, employing an extended and aggressive zone, also held down Foothill in the first half, limiting the Knights to a season-low 10 points before the break and held their largest lead, 27-11, after a layup by Jaylin Jones (12 points, 10 rebounds) with 4:51 remaining in the third.
“To give them only 10 points at halftime is just great defensive effort,” Carlson said. “We haven’t (used the zone) that much this year, but it works well with them.”
The Knights shot 0-of-10 from 3-point range in the first half and didn’t get a shot off from the floor in the first four minutes of the third quarter, but a banked-in 3-pointer by Blaysen Varnadoe with 3:54 left in the third opened the game up.
Varnadoe, who finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds, led the Foothill comeback with nine fourth-quarter points, and Kaylani Maiava added eight in the second half, but the Knights could only tie the game late.
“When (Salas) fouled out, it gave us a little bit of an opportunity,” Foothill coach Vince Namba said. “We just couldn’t come back and get over the top.”
In the Empire League:
Valencia 71, Tustin 70 (OT): Sonia Bishara hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to give the Tigers (14-6, 4-0) command of the Empire League. Bishara finished with 14 points and Traci Ishii led Valencia with 21 points. The Tillers (13-7, 3-1) got 21 points from Chynna Autele and 16 points and 12 rebounds from Devyn Barner.
In the Pacific Coast League:
Woodbridge 67, Beckman 45: Four Woodbridge players scored in double figures for the Warriors (15-5, 5-0) in their fourth double-digit league victory. Anjali Ghadi and Alissa Niewiadomski had 15 points apiece, Sierra Vaglica had 14 and Annika Walker added 10. Farah Manneh led the Patriots (12-8, 4-1) with 11 points.
Contact the writer: jbalan@ocregister.com
