Girls’ hoops secures silver

It wasn’t pretty, but the Laguna Beach High girls’ basketball team will take it.

The “it” was a 32-24 victory at Estancia on Feb. 8 that wrapped up second-place in the Orange Coast League standings and secured a CIF-Southern Section playoff berth for the Breakers.

Laguna, ranked No. 11 in Division IV-AA, drew a first-round home game and hosted Santiago of Garden Grove on Thursday. The score wasn’t available at press time.

In the win over Estancia, Lauren Kelly scored nine points, a key, seven of which came at “critical moments” of the second half, Laguna Coach Jon Hendrickson said.

Emily Writer scored eight points, and Sam Garner and Emily LaRose each scored four points.

“It was an ugly game from start to finish,” said Hendrickson who called the performance “uncharacteristic” of his team.

“We played sluggish in the first half and were not into the game mentally. We led from start to finish, but it just wasn’t an effort I had been used to seeing. The second half, we came out with a little more fire, went to the right spots and made the key shots when we needed to.

“All in all, we won, which is the important thing. Sometimes you’ve just got to win ugly.”

A win Thursday over Santiago, the No. 2 team from the Garden Grove League, would send Laguna into a second-round game Saturday (Feb. 16) against the winner of the No. 6 St. Margaret’s-Aquinas first-round game also played Thursday.