STUDIO CITY — Harvard-Westlake girls basketball finally achieved a .500 record on Tuesday night in a championship manner.
The Wolverines beat fellow Mission League team Notre Dame 50-38 in the CIF Southern California Division II Regional championship to move their record to 18-18. More importantly, they secured their first appearance in a CIF State championship game since 2010.
Harvard-Westlake will play the winner of the Northern California regional final game — between Colfax and Pleasant Valley — on Saturday at 2 p.m. at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
“With all our injuries, today is the first day we’ve had everybody back,” Harvard-Westlake coach Melissa Hearlihy said. “What I love is that different kids are doing great things on different nights and I think that’s how you win championships.”
Valentina Guerrero scored 15 points for Harvard-Westlake in her first game back since Jan. 16 when she broke her nose in a game against Chaminade. She got her nose reset and played Tuesday wearing a plastic protective mask.
“I wanted to get back out there so badly,” Guerrero said. “This game felt so good to come back. I just came in like OK, how can I help my team and how can we get this win and still follow the game plan?”
Notre Dame’s Natalie Trujillo tied the game at 8-all on a layup with three seconds remaining in the opening quarter, but the Wolverines defense and tough rebounding kept the Knights from fully settling in.
Harvard-Westlake used a 12-0 scoring run in the second quarter to launch itself ahead of Notre Dame (22-14). Guerrero drove through the lane for a layup to put the Wolverines up by 10 points with three minutes to go until halftime, then Madison Gillett followed up with a 3-pointer to complete the run for a 26-13 advantage.
After the break, Notre Dame’s Natalie Villamor made two straight 3-pointers and closed the gap to 26-21.
Villamor made four 3s in the second half to finish with 12 points. Amia Witt also…
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