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Sports

Dolphins Hoops Falls to Ventura

Palisades' girls basketball team loses in overtime in the regional quarterfinals.

Palisades High girls' basketball coach Torino Johnson wasn't satisfied just making the Division II state tournament. He wanted his squad to make a deep postseason run to earn respect for the City Section.

The Dolphins certainly earned Buena's respect Thursday night in Ventura, giving the second-seeded Bulldogs all they could handle before losing 63-58 in overtime in the quarterfinals of the Southern California Regional playoffs. In fact, they not only earned their opponents' respect, but the respect of the opposition's fans as well. 

"A longtime Buena fan, an older gentleman, came up to me after the game and said 'I've been going to games for a long time and we've never had a team come in here and play us like that, so whatever you're doing, keep doing it,'" Johnson said. "As a coach, for someone outside the program to recognize that you're kids play hard, that's the greatest compliment you can get."

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Palisades (25-10) led by one point with 11 seconds left in regulation. Buena had the ball and inbounded to top scorer Keani Albanez, who was fouled by Kseniya Shevchuk with eight seconds to go. Albanez made her first free throw to tie the game 54-54, but she missed the second attempt.

Each team turned the ball over in the final eight seconds, sending the game into overtime. There, missed free throws cost the Dolphins. In all, they missed six of their 17 foul shots.

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Albanez, who is bound for Gonzaga, led the Bulldogs (25-7) with a game-high 29 points, including three three-pointers, and Buena made nine three-pointers in all. It had missed four of 17 shots from beyond the arc in its 55-53 loss at the buzzer to Rialto in the Southern Section Division 2A final last week.

Asia Smith had 24 points and 14 rebounds and point guard Ashlie Bruner had eight points, 12 assists, two steals and one rebound for the Dolphins, who trailed 30-24 at halftime but opened the third quarter on a 13-0 run and still led by five points going into the fourth quarter.

"Ashlie [Bruner] was the best player out there," Johnson said. "Albanez didn't score in the second and third quarters when we had Ashlie guarding her, but we didn't want Ashlie getting in foul trouble so we switched other players on her [Albanez] at times."

Palisades made great strides this season but Johnson insists his team will not rest on its laurels. Next year, he believes, his team will be even better. He has already scheduled a game against regional and national power Brea Olinda and is working on a rematch with Mater Dei, the top-ranked team in the country, which beat the Dolphins 82-25 in December--a loss Johnson believes made his team tougher.

"We're not running from anybody," Johnson said. "If we just make our free throws [Thursday], we're playing Saturday. This was a tough one to lose. We proved a lot but our inexperience hurt us. I think the atmosphere and never being in a game of that magnitude cost us in the end. Still, I'm very proud of the girls and what they were able to accomplish this season."

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