Athletes of the Week: Mills girls’ basketball

The entire Vikings roster has earned Daily Journal Athletes of the Week honors, though, for some underdog antics of their own.

“I think we came into the CCS, we were frustrated because the whole season a lot of people were doubting us like we wouldn’t make it to CCS or anything,” Mills senior Janice Yung said. “So, we kept that in the back of our minds and decided to just play and prove people wrong.”

After the previous week, where No. 6-seed Mills advanced through the CCS bracket by upsetting No. 3 Soquel and No. 2 Santa Cruz, before falling to No. 1 Capuchino in the finals, the Vikings ultimately enjoyed their upset over a No. 1 seed in the state tourney. Qualifying for the CIF Division IV tournament, Mills drew the No. 8 seed. And after taking down No. 9 Lowell-SF at home 41-26 in last Tuesday opener, the Vikings traveled to Redding to face No. 1 University Prep, and reveled in a 48-35 victory.

“The biggest catalyst was we got our best player back,” Mills head coach Dave Matsu said.

Yung was that best player, and the fourth-year varsity senior returned to full strength for the playoffs after suffering a concussion Jan. 26 late in a blowout victory over Menlo-Atherton.

In her absence, Mills lost four straight. After her return, the Vikings found reason for optimism in their regular-season finale. Despite losing their Feb. 14 Senior Night game to Aragon, the 53-49 final score was a vast improvement over the first time the two teams matched up, when the Vikings, without Yung, fell to the Dons 52-28 just 10 days earlier.

“We went as she went,” Matsu said. “And just the kids’ belief in that they could make a run, they bought in to us staying positive and upbeat throughout the five out of six losses that we suffered.”

But the entire eight-player rotation — including Michelle Tang, Abby Sun, Kayli Lee, Myrika Castillo Villegas, Natalie Ng, Aaliyah Stuart and Serena Mezzetta — fueled the Cinderella postseason run.

“For the first time, we were all healthy,” Yung said. “Because for the whole season, someone was always injured. This was the first time we could actually group together and have the whole team back.”

And don’t forget about the bench, Matsu said, comprised of Amanda Dong, Riley Dela Fuente, Tiffany Huang, Gianna Mezzetta and Luna Mengel-Yoshimura.

“Our bench was just electric from the very first CCS game to Saturday night,” Matsu said. “They were the MVPs of this team.”

The electricity from the bench loomed large as the Vikings struggled to relax their shots throughout the postseason. They were not alone in this. The final score of the Feb. 26 CCS Division III championship loss to Capuchino was a meager 36-29. A few miles down the road in the CCS Division II championship game, Aragon and Hillsdale fared little better with Aragon winning 52-47.

A big reason for the tepid shooting was the return of student cheering sections, who brought loud eruptions of fan noise to the postseason courts. It was a refreshing atmosphere to witness after COVID regularly turned high school gymnasiums into ghost towns over the past two years. But many varsity players were thrust into the thunder-dome conditions for the playoffs having never played in such raucous environs.

Sun was the one who finally found the comfort zone, as the senior went on quite a 3-point spree through the Nor Cal tourney. All told, she converted 22 playoff 3s, with 12 coming in Mills’ three Nor Cal games. And her four 3s in Saturday’s loss ignited a third-quarter run that got the Vikings back in the game after trailing 35-20 at the half.

Led by their ball-pressuring help defense — a defense that took over 25 charging fouls this season, Matsu said — the Vikings caught fire in the transition game, with Sun knocking down 3s on three consecutive possessions. After trailing by as much as 16, Mills had the deficit down to 2 and produced another transition look to Sun from the perimeter.

And, oh, what could have been.

“When she let her shot go everyone in the gym thought it was going in, and it just rattled in and out,” Matsu said.

But the outcome didn’t diminish the program-record Nor Cal regional semifinal run, during which everyone in the eight-player rotation had a chance to shine.

Lee came off the bench as an off-guard to shore up the ball handing; Castillo Villegas grabbed boards as the 5-8 sixth-man; Ng belied her undersized frame to also contribute rebounds off the bench; Tang knocked down 3s as a starting guard in her first postseason games; Stuart kept going full-on Charles Barkley in the paint as an undersized power forward; and Serena Mezzetta put herself on the map as a 6-foot center.

“I woke up on Sunday … so proud and so pleased how the players and the coaches played together and made this run together,” Matsu said. “So, it was awesome.”

But the catalyst was Yung’s return, and the senior’s ability to come full circle despite seeing her playing time limited over the past two years — first in the spring of 2021 due to the shortened COVID season, and then this season due to the injury late in the year.

But the fourth-year varsity senior learned well from Mills’ first appearance in the CIF Northern California playoffs two years ago during her sophomore campaign. She was the youngling on that roster. This time around, she was the one leading the Vikings to new heights.

“Now me, taking on the role of being the senior on the team, I like taking on the same role and mentoring the underclassmen,” Yung said. “I just think we were really close … and I think a lot of those moments just brought us together and we had a lot of chemistry.”