Desert Vista, Xavier Prep reach girls Open basketball championship in epic semifinals

Tuesday night’s girls’ high school basketball Open Division semifinals at Mountain Pointe High School did not disappoint. After No. 2 seed Phoenix Xavier Prep comfortably beat No. 6 Phoenix Pinnacle, No. 4 Phoenix Desert Vista needed a thriller to sneak past No. 1 Chandler Hamilton. Desert Mountain will face Xavier Prep for the Open Championship on Saturday at 5 p.m., at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Here’s how the semifinals unfolded:

Desert Vista comes from behind to beat Hamilton in overtime

For the better part of three quarters, Desert Vista, the defending Open champion, had no answers.

Sure, there were glimpses of the Thunder’s talent — Shay Ijiwoye’s behind-the-back feed to Dylan Swindle, a handful of nifty finishes, a level of speed rarely on display in high school. But none of it was any match for Hamilton’s two domineering bigs, 6-foot-6 CJ Hinder and 6-foot-4 Taylor Sipfle.

So after those three quarters, Desert Vista was in a 39-30 hole, its season on the brink. In the process, Hinder and Sipfle had combined for 26 points.

Then, Desert Vista turned it on, the first steps towards an eventual 57-53 overtime win. The Thunder went back to a full-court press that they briefly tried in the third quarter, and sped the game up on offense. The goal was to take Hamilton’s frontcourt out of the equation as much as possible.

“If those kids got the ball, they were scoring,” Desert Vista coach Erin O’Bryan said. “There was nothing we could do. So we had to speed them up and we had to make their guards throw the ball out of bounds, we had to steal it from them, we just couldn't let the ball get inside.”

The plan worked. Behind a pair of threes, each from Eanae Dagons and Trinity Jones, Desert Vista started the fourth quarter on a 14-1 run, retaking the lead.

It wasn't quite enough — at least not in regulation. From down five with under a minute left, Hamilton got an Ella Malee 3-pointer, a handful of free throws and a crucial Desert Vista turnover to extend the game.

Overtime was no simple matter either. Hamilton led for much of the period. But again, Desert Vista’s work from beyond the arc made the difference. While Hamilton scored in ones and twos, Desert Vista got a pair of crucial threes — one from Dagons and one from Madison Brown. Hamilton never led again, missing two looks of its own to tie as the final seconds ticked off the clock.

“I don't think I have (a heartbeat) anymore,” O’Bryan said. “… But that's what you sign up for. There's no other feeling than this right now.”

Xavier Prep keeps dominant season rolling in win over Pinnacle

In a sense, Xavier Prep reaching the Open Division championship game was inevitable. The Gators are a supremely talented unit full of future college players. They only lost one game to an in-state opponent all year.

And yet, there they were Tuesday night, sprinting onto the court in celebration at the final whistle and taking pictures in front of an Open Division finalists banner. This might have been expected for Xavier Prep, but that wasn’t going to stop the Gators from savoring every moment of a 69-53 win over Pinnacle on a night that brought their dreams one step closer to reality.

“Woo, a sigh of relief,” Xavier Prep coach Jennifer Gillom said. “That's for sure. I knew this would be no easy task.”

Pinnacle — the No. 6 seed — came out strong, pushing No. 2 Xavier Prep in the early going and showcasing its three-point prowess. The Gators, with a taller lineup, struggled to step out to the perimeter and stop Pinnacle from driving inside.

But after Gillom switched to a smaller group, Xavier Prep found its rhythm — in large part because sophomore Noelle Guiamatsia proved capable of handling the interior load on her own, finishing with a game-high 17 points.

“We needed (Guiamatsia) tonight,” Gillom said. “We needed her to be a presence on the boards as well as inside defensively. And in the second half, she showed up. First half, she had a slow start. But she came through when it counted.”

Guiamatsia was aided by Dominique Nesland, who scored 14 points and finished with a triple-double. Sarah Miller also added 11. Abigail Dean was Pinnacle’s leading scorer with 16.

In Gillom’s eyes, this performance was the result of Xavier Prep learning its lessons last month, when it dropped one game to Chandler Hamilton and nearly dropped another to Gilbert — showing in the process that the Gators were indeed beatable.

“Sometimes we play individually, but when we play team basketball, we are a great team,” Gillom said. “And I think they figured that out tonight as well.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Desert Vista, Xavier Prep reach Open girls basketball title game