Aragon beats buzzer, rival in CCS semifinals

Aragon (14-11) maintained its poise after seeing a four-point lead evaporate with less than 30 seconds to play and they called a timeout with just over five seconds to play and the ball out of bounds on the right sideline in the front court.

Coming out of the timeout, everyone knew who would get the ball: Aragon’s Daisy Pantoja Beltran, who averaged 20 points per game during PAL Bay Division play this season.

“It was supposed to go to Daisy. But my team had other plans,” said Aragon head coach Kristie Hala’ufia. “If it went to either of them (Beltran or Parangan), I would have been happy.”

With the win, the Dons move into the CCS Division II title game, where they will face top-seeded Valley Christian (11-15). The Warriors got past No. 4 Monta Vista 48-44 in the other semifinal game.

Parangan, a senior and the youngest of three sisters to come through the Aragon program in the last several years, was fairly quiet in the first half. She was held scoreless, but helped in other areas by grabbing three rebounds and coming up with a steal.

In the second half, she found her offensive rhythm. She knocked down a 3-pointer midway through the third quarter and added an offensive rebound and putback with under a minute to give the Dons a 31-30 lead going into fourth.

Parangan opened the final period with another bucket before her last-second heroics as all nine of her points came in the second half.

In addition, she was even more active on the boards, grabbing eight more to finish with 11 for the game.

“She was huge,” Hala’ufia said. “She lives for the big moment. She’s had a lot of sisters ahead of her. She’s watched a lot (of Aragon basketball).”

It was a great ending to a great game that went how one would expect a CCS semifinal game between rivals to go: tough, gritty and physical. Neither team shot the ball particularly well, Aragon shot just 30% while Hillsdale (18-8) shot 28%, which kept the game close the entire way.

Free throws were the first points of the game, with Aragon holding an early 2-1 lead. But a Daniella Sierra 3 keyed an 8-3 spurt, with Kiara Nitao converting a fastbreak and Kadence Lane capping it with a layup and a 9-5 lead with 2:47 left in the opening stanza.

Sierra would finish with a team-high 13 points, Lane added 12 and Nitao nine.

But when Aragon’s Ellie McGinty drained a 3, the Dons were down just a bucket, 12-10, going into the second.

The Knights scored the first five points of the second quarter, with Lane converting a three-point play, followed by a driving layup. When Lane hit a free throw, Hillsdale had its biggest lead of the game, 18-12 with 3:28 left in the half.

But it was Aragon’s turn to rally back. Pantoja Beltran, who finished with a game-high 15 points, knocked down a pair of free throws and added a layup on the break to ignite a 10-2 run to close the half, with Eva Felix scoring back-to-back bucket, as the Dons knotted the score at 20-all at halftime.

When Jaclyn Ruttenberg hit two free throws to open the second-half scoring, it was the Dons’ first lead since the opening minutes of the game. That was followed by a tough layup from Pantoja Beltran, who muscled up the shot and then flexed on the fallen defender. Pantoja Beltran followed with another layup and Parangan hit her 3 and Aragon was up 29-24 with 4:29 to play in the third.

But the Dons’ offense dried up the rest of the quarter and Hillsdale clawed their way back into the game. Lane hit a pair of free throws followed by a bucket off the bounce. Nitao then scored a pair of baskets at the rim and the Knights were down just a point, 31-30 going into the final quarter.

Hillsdale missed on a couple of gimmees in the opening minutes of the fourth before getting layups from Nitao and Sierra, the latter of which gave Hillsdale its last lead of the game, 34-33 with just over five minutes left to play.

The Knights, however, would endure a nearly five-minute scoring drought and the Dons retook the lead on a rise-up jumper, followed by a 3 from Pantoja Beltran and Aragon was up 38-34 with 3:05 left.

But Hillsdale wasn’t quite done. Sierra got a shot to fall, cutting the deficit to 38-36 with 23 seconds left. Nicole Moita de Deus then intercepted the ensuing inbound pass, feeding Sierra with a perfect bounce pass and the senior converted to tie the score at 38-all with 19 seconds left and set up Parangan’s dramatics.

“I told my girls before the game, every game from here on out is going to get tougher,” Hala’ufia said. “Any time it’s a Hillsdale-Aragon game, both teams are ready to play.”