Mater Dei girls basketball coach Kevin Kiernan likened this season’s squad to an ever-changing jigsaw puzzle: a challenge to decipher in certain respects, but rewarding when the pieces mesh on a given night.
The Monarchs showed flashes of their elite potential Tuesday night, overwhelming Glendora, 77-35, with a swarming defensive effort in a nonleague game at Mater Dei High.
Senior guard Jayda Adams poured in a season-high 28 points behind six 3-pointers. Junior center Emma Torbert finished with 14 points and pulled down 13 rebounds against a smaller Tartans front line.
“We’ve been working on being connected,” Kiernan said. “We have good pieces, but can the pieces connect? We’re trying all year to put the right pieces together and we’re trying to do it against top-flight competition, where there’s no margin for error, so we’ve lost some games. But we’ve gotten better.”
The Monarchs are 8-5, and four of their losses have come against squads that played in the CIF-SS Open Division a season ago. Their only loss, in the Nike Tournament of Champions in Phoenix, came against Mesquite, the top-ranked team in the state of Arizona, in overtime.
“That competition out in Phoenix was intense,” Adams acknowledged. “Coach booked us a tough schedule so that we’d be prepared and ready. Playing the top players in the nation and being the underdog has helped in putting everything together. Couldn’t be happier coming back here with that win (today).”
Entering Tuesday night with a 14-1 record, Glendora’s lone loss of the season came against another Trinity League team, Santa Margarita, 46-41.
The Tartans had trouble crossing midcourt against Mater Dei’s full-court pressure, turning the ball over 22 times in total.
Adams drilled four shots from behind the 3-point line in the first quarter, and her 16 points gave Mater Dei a commanding 27-10 after eight minutes of play.
The Monarchs led by 31 at the half and by 40 after three.
“We’re trying to get a defensive identity,” Kiernan added. “Our shooting comes and goes, but we feel we can be a pretty good defensive team. We can press a little bit. We can play some zone. We can some man-to-man. And we did all of that today.”
In other nonleague games:
Kennedy 55, El Toro 45: Katelyn Bomar (15 points), Traci Kwan (14) and Camryn Hamaguchi (10) led the way as the Fighting Irish (12-3) notched a victory at El Toro. Karimy Jutila finished with 14 points for the Chargers (5-12).
Pacifica 62, Rancho Alamitos 22: The Mariners (13-2) outscored the Vaqueros, 46-10, in the opening half and cruised to a victory. Pacifica’s Isabella Robles scored 12 points and Mercedes Robles added 11.
Garden Grove 45, Western 32: The Argonauts outscored the Pioneers by 12 points in the third quarter to seize the lead for good. Garden Grove’s Alexis Christian scored a game-high 12 points. Teammates Kayla Castaneda and Celise Moreno tallied 11 and 10, respectively.
Contact the writer: kconnolly@scng.com
