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Girls’ Basketball: CdM performs at high level in playoff opening win

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One key player was missing from the Corona del Mar High girls’ basketball team lineup on Thursday. Brianna Westrup wasn’t with the Sea Kings in their opener in the CIF Southern Section Division 3AA playoffs.

Westrup wasn’t around the Sea Kings last season either because she played for the school’s soccer team and the basketball team still managed to reach the semifinals. The Sea Kings began what hopes to be another deep run in the postseason, and they sure didn’t need Westrup’s services against Lawndale Leuzinger.

Tia Grippo got the start in Westrup’s place and she more than filled in for Westrup. The freshman guard made her first seven shots, two from behind the arc, and finished with a season-high 18 points to spark No. 5-seeded CdM to a 79-55 blowout win at home.

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The only shot Grippo bricked in the first half came on a layup right before halftime. At the break, with his team up, 44-10, and playing its most complete first half of the season, CdM Coach Mark Decker smiled when someone asked him if Westrup lost her starting spot with Grippo’s performance.

Before the start of the season, Decker said he gave Westrup permission to sit out this week so she could attend her sister’s wedding in Mexico. The coach doesn’t expect the senior to be back with CdM (20-7) until next week, so Westrup won’t be available for the Sea Kings’ second-round game at No. 14 Calabasas (14-13) on Saturday at 7 p.m.

“What you can you say? It’s her sister’s wedding,” Decker said. “Her sister had scheduled it last summer, and it came about before she was even playing basketball. It is what it is and our kids are good enough to step up and do what they did tonight.

“She was gone over Christmas break. We played [in the Best of the West] tournament at [Chino Hills] Ayala without her and we made it to the championship game. I’m very confident and comfortable with the girls that we have here right now. We have six returners from a CIF semifinals team.”

Those experienced players helped CdM record its most lopsided playoff win in nine seasons under Decker. While Krista Anderson (20 points, nine rebounds and three blocks), Natalia Bruening (13 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks) and Maria King (14 points and six rebounds) produced, the one player who wasn’t with CdM last season came out on fire against Leuzinger (12-17).

Grippo, who’s 5-foot-6, did it all on the offensive end in the opening quarter. She hit a jumper, then a three-pointer, before she scored in the paint in transition and on a putback. She was a perfect five-for-five shooting in the first quarter, giving her half of CdM’s 22 points.

In the second quarter, Grippo had another putback and a three. She was still shooting 100%, until she missed that easy layup with one second left in the first half.

“That was the most frustrating part,” Grippo said of missing her first shot, “but I just knew that I had to get back out there in the third quarter.”

When Grippo returned, she converted the first basket in the second half. She also paid for it.

After going in for a layup, Leuzinger’s Uheina Tukutau elbowed Grippo in the mouth. With Grippo bleeding from her gums, the referees called a technical foul on Tukutau.

“I’m pretty scared because I’m usually the smallest one out there, so when they were like coming at me with all that energy I didn’t like know what to do,” Grippo said.

Decker started Grippo with Westrup out because he knew what she was capable of in the first round. Grippo, who has only started a handful of games, didn’t disappoint.

“She has no fear,” Decker said of Grippo, who made eight of 11 shots, including going two for two from three-point range. “I knew she would be a good person to start because she just has inner confidence and she’s not afraid of the moment.”

CIF Southern Section Division 3AA playoffs

First round

Corona del Mar 79, Leuzinger 55

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Leuzinger 3 – 7 – 17 – 28 — 55

CdM 22 – 22 – 18 – 17 — 79

L – McMahan 26, Scott 12, Brown 7, Ward 4, Onwuka 3, McDonald 2, Gatewood 1.

3-pt. goals – McMahan 3, Scott 3, Brown 1.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – Tukutau.

CdM – Anderson 20, Grippo 18, King 14, Bruening 13, Hess 10, Pridemore 2, Tam 2.

3-pt. goals – Grippo 2, King 2.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – None.

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