Page falls short to Seton Catholic

First year Page Lady Sand Devils' head basketball coach Justin Smith now understands the frustration of finishing second in the Arizona 4A-Division II state championship game.

On Saturday against the top-ranked Seton Catholic Lady Sentinels, Page was outplayed and finished as the state runners up following their 57-34 loss in the championship game at Tim's Toyota Center.

Page (21-5) has now lost four consecutive state title games. The last time Page won a state title game was in 1999.

Entering this year's state tournament, Page was seeded No. 6. The Lady Sand Devils then battled their way to state finals with tournament wins over No. 14 Maricopa (54-40), over No. 3 Cactus (42-38) and No. 2 Flagstaff (49-47).

Though runner up state champions has become familiar with the program, Smith says it was more than what he expected this season.

"It's tough to swallow right now," Smith said after the loss. "It's definitely more than I expected in my first year."

Being in his rookie year as head girls coach at Page, Smith appreciated his team's effort to finish as this year's state runner up champions.

"The girls responded well to me and with my coaching style this year. It's different from coach Adkins, different from coach Beuell. I'm just happy with their effort," Smith said. "We just came one game short from where we wanted to be."

"Page is such an amazing program," Seton Catholic coach Karen Self said after the game. "They have been at the top of this conference every year. They knocked off a couple of real good teams to get here. They're always good and so this has been a huge victory for us."

Throughout Saturday's championship game, Seton Catholic's defense constantly pressured Page's offense and created turnovers. Over and over after a scored basket by the Sentinels, their defense was right back on the ball as Page struggled with the inbounds pass and numerous inbound violations. That would then give the ball back to Seton underneath their own basket.

"They pushed us way out and away from the basket and that's just something that didn't happen to us all year," Smith said about Seton Catholic's full court defense. "Their defense took us away from what we wanted to do on offense, that's for sure."

Along with Seton Catholic's defensive pressure, their offense was quite effective with their post player, Theresea Wirth, controlling the paint. Page's center, Candice Conraby, spent a lot of valuable time on the bench with foul trouble.

"Yeah it did hurt us," Smith said of Cornaby's foul troubles. "When your starting post player gets in foul trouble early and their best player and post players are getting it done, it definitely affected us defensively. But offensively we couldn't get her the ball anyways. It's tough to swallow."

Wirth led all scorers in the game to finish with 23 points. She got most of her scoring done in the second half with 18 points.

"They had a hard time guarding her," coach Self said of Wirth. "She can hit a long jumper, she can step out and hit shots, she can post up. It was her focus and goal and it worked out for her."

Cornaby eventually fouled out and finished with only two points, after leading the team in scoring in their win against Flagstaff in the semifinals.

On offense, Page's post players, Cornaby, Sarah Mong and Nicole Manson, were unable to get total control of the ball or even get close enough to the basket as Seton Catholic constantly swarmed them in the paint.

"We couldn't attack the basket because we couldn't get the ball to our post players," Smith said. "Those are things that we have been doing all year long. I just don't understand that. We just couldn't do that tonight.

"They played really well on defense. When they put pressure on you, you need to get to the basket and we weren't able to do that tonight," Smith added.

For Page, Manson scored eight points and Mong finished with five.

With an aggressive defense and unstoppable offense, it was all Seton Catholic for four quarters. Jumping out to a 16-9 lead after the first quarter, it was as close that Page would get for the rest of the game.

By half time, Seton Catholic was in full control with a 26-17 lead. At the half, Seton Catholic guard Kayla Bustos did most of the scoring with 13 points. She would finish the game with 16 points.

For Page, it didn't get any better in the beginning of the third quarter as Seton Catholic scored the first six points, 32-17, before Cornaby got her only points at the 4:55 mark and the first points for Page. But after those points, Cornaby went back to the bench after being whistled with her fourth foul.

With Cornaby on the bench, Seton Catholic's Wirth went to work on the inside as she racked up six points in the third period giving them a 44-22 lead after three quarters.

In the fourth quarter, Wirth scored all of Seton Catholic's 13 points. It was in the final quarter that Page scored the most points of the game with 12.

"I was expecting them to press us a lot and expecting them to have a lot of crowd support," Self said. "I was expecting them to hit a lot of shots from the perimeter and a lot of threes.

"Our goal was to just keep them in front of us and contest every shot and hoping to not let the crowd be a factor," Self added.

With the 4A-II championship wrapped up by Seton Catholic (29-4), they ended their season by winning their last 18-games. Self described the championship as a total team effort.

"We have some stars on our team that are very, very talented," Self said. "Every kid on this team has contributed and had a big game somewhere or another to get us here.

"I'm just so proud of all the work these kids put into. They earn every bit of this amazing day," she said. "I'm just so happy for them today."

In her career, Self has won three state titles in class 2A and made several trips to the finals in class 3A, but has never won a title in that class.

As for Page, four of their five starters will return next season, including sophomore guard Malarie Williams who led the team in scoring with eight points.

"It's great just to get here... it's shocking to lose," Williams said while holding  back tears after the game. "It's just the road trip here... I just wish we finished strong.

"It's been a long way to get here and people didn't believe we could do it," Williams said about making it to the championship game. "Just coming up and being No. 6 and to end up playing here, it proves that we can play. I just wish that we could've finished strong."

In a bold statement, Willams vowed that Page would not only be back in the state finals, but they will win it all.

"We have a few sophomores on the JV team and some other players that need to step up," she said. "I know we can do it and I guarantee that before I leave, we're going to win a championship. We're going to win one."

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