SAN JOSE — This one was decided early.
Menlo-Atherton scored the first 12 points of the game and was never seriously threatened Thursday in a 56-37 victory over host Evergreen Valley in a Central Coast Section Division I girls basketball semifinal.
M-A, the No. 3 seed, moves on to play top seed Los Gatos on Saturday for the CCS D-I championship at Mission College at 3 p.m.
“That was our goal from the start of the season,” said point guard Eve Amram, who scored 13 points against Evergreen Valley. “Now we’re one game away.”
Thursday’s semifinal was a game of runs with M-A’s runs longer and more frequent.
After that initial 12-0 run to begin the game, Evergreen scored the next eight points only to see M-A reel off 10 in a row to make it 22-8.
Trailing 27-14 at halftime, the Cougars came out and scored the first six points of the third quarter to make it 27-20. But that was as close as they would get. The Bears proceeded to put the game away, outscoring the home team 17-3 to go up 44-23.
M-A’s 1-3-1 zone defense was a decisive factor, preventing good looks at the basket and making penetration difficult.
“We wanted them taking outside shots,” M-A coach Steve Yob said. “They’re a really quick team, really fast, they can get to the basket. We wanted to keep them out of the paint, make them shoot from outside and our girls did a really great job on defense.”
