The start of Tuesday night's game against Presentation glittered like fool's gold for the Mountain View girls basketball team.
First there was the seven-point lead the Spartans took before Presentation scored a point in an eventual 58-51 Presentation victory. It almost seemed to easy for Mountain View.
Then there was the Panthers' lackluster 9-15 record that it took into the Central Coast Section semifinals at Christopher High. That was deceptive as well, with many of Presentation's losses coming in the blast furnace that is the West Catholic Athletic League.
"We played all of those teams extremely tough," Presentation coach Wade Nakamura said. "We were one or two possessions away (from winning) against all of those teams, minus SI which blew us out. We are battle-tested and we persevered and the ball bounced our way luckily (against Mountain View) a few times. They had a chance to take the lead a few times on some lay-ups and we were very fortunate."
Mountain View (24-3) trailed by as many as 13 before pulling to within 49-48 with 2:09 left. The Spartans had two opportunities to take the lead, but missed lay-ups under pressure both times. The Panthers eventually eased away.
The hard-fought victory now has Presentation (10-15) one victory from a section title. It will meet Woodside at 5:30 p.m. Friday at Santa Clara High.
Any thoughts the Spartans might have had that this would be a cakewalk were erased in the first half when Presentation answered Mountain View's 7-0 opening run with a 15-point run of its own. The Panthers led 25-18 at halftime.
Mountain View was banged up physically after the game, but not so bad mentally given that it will return everyone next season except three seniors.
"Our girls played really hard tonight," Mountain View coach Judy Auclair said. "We're used to coming back in games, so we always had confidence we could pull it out. The girls played with everything they had -- I don't think they left anything out there. It's a good place for us to be going into next season because we have a lot of sophomores on this team."
Presentation's Courtney Danna scored a game-high 16 points. Mountain View was led by Jayme Hughes with 15 points and Karen Kauffman with 13.
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John Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@Prep2Prep.com.
