SACRAMENTO – Freshmen. They have a lot to learn.
Rosary freshman Kate Goostrey was unaware that high school players are not supposed to shoot well in an NBA arena.
So Goostrey made six 3-pointers and scored her season high of 25 points Friday in Rosary’s 62-45 win over Campolindo of Moraga in the CIF State Division III girls basketball championship game in the Golden 1 Center.
The Golden 1 Center is the new home arena for the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. Goostrey treated the big place like it was the smallish Karcher Center, Rosary’s on-campus home gym. Her six 3-pointers established a CIF State Division III championship game record.
Records do not exist for most blocked shots in a CIF State girls basketball championship game. If they did, Rosary’s Rebekah Obinma might have broken it Friday. She blocked 10 shots.
Obinma, a 6-foot-1 junior who played Friday like she is 7-foot-1, also had 17 rebound and scored 12 points. Camille Lira added 11 points for the Royals, who finished 30-5.
Rosary jumped to a 7-0 lead. Campolindo (27-7) missed its first 12 shots of the game before rallying to go ahead, 8-7. A Goostrey 3-pointer put the Royals back on top, 10-8, and Rosary did not trail again.
Goostrey claimed she was nervous during the game.
“I definitely was at the beginning,” said Goostrey, a 5-foot-7 point guard. “Coming out, looking at the big court. My teammates told me to just calm down and take it easy, that it was just another game.”
Of course, it was not.
It was Rosary’s first CIF State championship basketball game. Three weeks earlier, the Royals won their second CIF-Southern Section title, having won the previous one in 1999.
Richard Yoon, in his 22nd season coaching Rosary, saw the team’s potential months ago.
“I thought we could do some special things,” Yoon said. “We just had to pull together.”
Obinma saw those same possibilities, too.
“With all the talent we have,” she said, “in the first game I knew we were going to be good.”
Rosary took a 13-11 lead into the second quarter. In that second quarter, the Royals outscored the Cougars, 18-7, to take a 31-18 lead into halftime.
Obinma was at her best offensively in the second half. She scored Rosary’s first 10 points of the third quarter, all from within 5 feet of the basket.
Campolindo made a brief run in the quarter, but Rosary maintained its 13-point edge going into the fourth quarter.
Goostrey opened the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer. Lira followed with a layup. Goostrey added another 3-pointer and Rosary had a 54-36 lead.
Campolindo went cold, missing seven consecutive shots.
Obinma fouled out with 2:26 remaining. The Royals had a 19-point lead, though, and the state championship trophy was pretty much theirs.
Campolindo’s top player was Haley Van Dyke, a 6-foot junior center. She scored 22 points and took a lot of shots to get there – Van Dyke was 9 for 37 from the field. Van Dyke also had 25 rebounds, 13 of them at the offensive end.
Rosary won CIF-SS and CIF State championships this season, but the Royals did not win a league championship. They finished third in the Trinity League, behind league-champion Mater Dei, which plays in the CIF State Division 2 championship game today, and second-place Orange Lutheran.
Rosary’s final loss of the 2016-17 season was to Orange Lutheran in a league game. The Royals finished the season by winning 12 in a row, including a 52-51 win over Camarillo in the CIF-SS Division 2AA championship game, a 63-53 win over Serra of San Diego in the CIF Southern California Regionals Division III championship game and their CIF State championship win over Campolindo.
“I’m so proud of our kids,” Yoon said. “They did the hard work. I can’t say enough about them.”
Contact the writer: sfryer@scng.com