Hosting a CIF Southern Section Division 5A second-round playoff game, Trinity Classical Academy girls basketball team came into The Master’s University energetic, riding a nine-game winning streak on Saturday.
“We were excited, we knew they were a good team. They were 20-5 and were 11-1 in league and had won a bunch of their most recent games, so we knew that they were hot like we are,” said Trinity Classical Academy head coach Daniel Hebert. “We watched film on them and prepared on Friday and felt good about our stuff, our defense and the girls have been really energetic lately and excited to be on such a hot streak.”
Playing tough, hard-nosed defense, the Knights were able to control the visitors scoring, leading Nuview through every quarter, defeating them 32-23 to advance to the quarter finals.
“We box-and-1 their best player and just shut her down,” Hebert said. “She actually had four fouls, but while she was out there we box-and-1 her with Heidi and felt that if we took her away they would struggle to score. Her and one of their other players score half of their teams points so we just wanted to make sure between the two of them they didn’t beat us.”
Senior guard Heidi Schafer set the tone for the Knights (14-8 overall) with her lockdown defense and followed it up leading the team in scoring hitting five 3-pointers to finish the game with 15 points.
“She killed it. I think she hit five 3’s and played very good defensively,” Hebert said. “Heidi struggled in the past with defense and it used to be a vulnerability for her, but we are excited because we have had her matched up against the other team’s best player in the first, second and we are going to have her on their in the third round too.”
The Knights suffocating defense held Nuview (20-6) to just eight points in the second half of the game and dictated the final score.
Hannah Caddow and Trinity Towns filled the stat sheet finishing the game with six points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and four steals, and five points, three assists, four rebounds and four steals, respectively.
“I think it’s been awesome that everyone has chipped in so much, but everything goes back to Hannah and Trin,” Hebert said. “If they’re not scoring 20 points they are doing something else. Hannah has just been dominant on getting back and getting blocked shots and helping us when we need her the most on defense. Trin is feisty and sometimes gets a little too feisty and fouls a little too much, but she gets a lot of steals so she makes up for it.”
Ellie Howell and freshman Katie Brown finished with seven rebounds each, scoring four and two points, respectively.
With the win, the Knights advance to the CIF-SS Division 5A quarter final where they travel to the Ambassador League fourth-place finisher Western Christian on Wednesday.
Tip off is at Western Christian at 7 p.m.
“They are stacked team and they are really good team, but we told our girls that we can play with anyone and the reason we play a tough pre league schedule is not just so we can be successful in league, but for this moment right now,” Hebert said. “We scrimmaged Canyon to start the season and we have played a lot of though schools so we are ready for this high-level competition and we feel really confident on the things that we are going to do defensively.”
