Foul trouble derails Summit Shasta in CCS Division V girls’ basketball finals

Ramirez finished with 15 points and nine rebounds, and led a dazzling second-quarter comeback. The Black Bears (16-6) were shut out in the first quarter, but a 12-0 deficit turned into an 18-18 tie by halftime because of the heroics of Summit Shasta’s sharpshooting forward.

“That’s very common,” Summit Shasta head coach Rudy Cayas said. “Like I’ve said before, Niesha does Niesha things. I wish she didn’t catch the fourth foul. We would have kept her in and it would have been a different ballgame. But props to Castilleja. They did their stuff.”

Shasta’s comeback started with the defense of Recia Ciriales and Taryn Lew, as the senior guards harassed Casti into two quick turnovers at the start of the second quarter.

“The last few games in playoffs, when we’re able to trap and D up, we’re a lot stronger and it made a big effect,” Cirales said. “Especially in the second half of games. And I think it’s a really good flip of the switch.”

Then Ramirez got her shot going, and relaxed her fellow Black Bears big time by drilling a deep 3-pointer from well back of the arc up top to get Shasta on the board.

“I think definitely every time she starts off big in a game, it always gets the rest of the team amped and hyped,” Lew said. “Because it allows us to follow her lead, and start working hard just like her in the game.”

Ramirez’s splash sparked a 14-0 run that pushed Shasta ahead when senior Haylen Ko grabbed a long offensive rebound and kicked a bounce pass to a cutting Chloe Macario for a baseline layup.

Macario finished with eight points, six of them in the second quarter. The sophomore had tied it 12-12 the previous series with a smooth dribble-drive and a sweet underhand finish. After Casti took the lead back 15-14 on a coast-to-coast Euro glide by senior point guard Antonia Vlahos, Ramirez swung the Black Bears back ahead with a short turnaround J. Casti junior Landry Agnich responded by rattling home a corner 3 with the shot clock winding down for the fourth lead change of the quarter, but Macario finished with another dribble-drive layup, banking it with English high off the glass to send it to halftime tied 18-18.

It was a massive turnaround after Summit Shasta shot 0 of 7 from the field in the first quarter. That’s when Vlahos began putting her stamp on the game for the Gators. The 5-9 senior finished with a game-high 20 points while adding seven rebounds and six steals.

“I think it was just we knew we had to keep working hard to catch back up,” Lew said. “We didn’t want to have our heads low, and we knew we were still in the game, and we were still confident.”

The Black Bears committed 25 turnovers in the game, 12 of them coming in the opening quarter. They took much better care of the ball in the second quarter, while Ramirez found a rhythm, totaling eight points, four rebounds and a steal in the eight minutes before halftime.

Ramirez took just two fouls into the break, but picked up two quick ones like rapid fire midway through the third quarter. The senior opened the half with a banked 3 to give the Black Bears a 21-18 advantage. But junior Layla Gallon and Vlahos followed with back-to-back layups to swing Casti ahead, fueling a 14-0 run of its own while Ramirez checked out following her fourth foul with 4:09 to play in the third.

“Pretty much the start of [the end],” Cayas said. “She’s a big part of our program, and a bigger part of the offense. So, it was tough once she got her fourth foul.”

The Gators took a 35-23 lead into the fourth quarter, when Ramirez checked back in and showed how quickly she can impact a game.

The Black Bears again were having trouble finding a handle, committing seven turnovers in the third quarter, and losing the handle on their first possession of the fourth in the half court with a loose ball nearly bounding over the baseline. But Ramirez went leaping over the line to toss the ball back in wildly, finding a teammate, who dribbled once before throwing up a midrange jumper to beat the shot clock. The shot missed, but Ramirez hustled back into the play to grab an offensive rebound, then hit a short fadeaway.

It would be the last points for Ramirez, however. While she didn’t foul out until there was 2:47 remaining in regulation, she didn’t touch the ball on offense for the final four minutes she was on the floor — a miscue Cayas blamed on a flurry of missed screens, and the rising volume of the crowd, which made it hard for him to hear himself, let alone communicate with his players, he said.

Summit Shasta played even in most aspects of the game. The rebounds were even at 28-28, and Shasta shot 33.3% from the field to Casti’s 32.6% clip. Even the turnover breakdown was near even, with the Gators committing 22. The difference was unquantifiable, lost in the ether of playing championship basketball with the contest’s most exciting player relegated to the bench.

Saturday marked Summit Shasta’s third straight appearance in the CCS finals. The Black Bears came up short of the championship last season with a 45-37 loss to Crystal. In 2022-23, Shasta celebrated its first CCS title in program history with a 64-39 win over Priory.

By virtue of advancing to the CCS finals, the Black Bears qualify for the CIF State Basketball Championships, set to open Tuesday.

“Not necessarily defeat,” Cirales said. “I mean, yeah, we all feel defeat, but I think it’s just — we have a second chance in state. We’ll see. This was our second chance from last year (in the CCS finals). But this year, we knew we wanted it more, knowing that we had five seniors on the team. So, we know we played our hardest.”