TODAY: St. Anthony In Girls' BBall CIF Championshop • Long Beach Post Sports

This afternoon at Mater Dei, at 4:30pm, the top-seeded St. Anthony Saints will attempt to defeat Montclair Prep for the CIF Division 5 championship, a feat that would truly set a high-water mark at the school, as it continues to turn its athletics program around in impressive fashion. Standing between the Saints and a ring is a 22-6 Mounties team that could present some matchup issues.

The Mounties aren’t a tall team—their biggest listed player is 5-10—but Chantel Dooley (#23) has been very, very big for them this year. She’s averaging16.4 points and 10 rebounds a game, both of which lead the team. Dooley, a guard/forward hybrid, also leads the team in assists, and the Mounties offense runs through her. They do have other scorers (Kimberly Scamman puts up 13 points a night and Lindsay Anderson averages over 9), but Dooley is the straw that stirs the drink. If the Saints can bottle her up, then they can worry about her creating for the rest of the team—when previous playoff opponents focused too much on Dooley, she started passing, and Scamman had a 24-point performance one night, and forward Alex Taylor had a 25-point performance another.

Because of the diversity of the Saints’ offense, they should be able to score. They certainly create their own matchups, as nobody at Montclair will be able to handle freshman phenom 6-3 Kendall Cooper. It’s all a matter of whether or not the Saints can stay sound on defense—if they can, expect to be hearing more about St. Anthony in the future.

Here’s directions to the game: click on the map for more detailed instructions—we’ll see you there!

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TODAY: St. Anthony In Girls’ BBall CIF Championshop

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