MILLBRAE, CA - The Branham girls basketball team trailed Saratoga by three points with 2:07 left in the game, then Regina Sankey took over.
Sankey scored nine of her game-high 34 points in the final minutes, lifting the Bruins to a 48-45 win against Saratoga. The win came in the CCS Division III quarterfinals and puts Branham into the semifinals at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday against Notre Dame-San Jose.
"We just wanted to leave it all on the floor," Sankey said of the comeback. "I'm the captain and the other players look up to me. I needed to step up."
Branham coach Heather Queyrel was delighted with the victory.
"It was good to get an upset against a higher seed," she said. "Mike Davey is a great coach. They have offensive sets that you just can't guard, so we didn't play any man defense."
Saratoga led by as many as eight points (39-31) with 7:09 left in the game. But after that, Sankey scored 14 points to almost personally catapult the Bruins into the semifinals.
Sankey made 3-pointers, she stole the ball, she made lay-ups -- she overwhelmed the Falcons.
"She's so physical and if the officials are letting her play, she's going to hurt you," Davey said. "In some games she gets in foul trouble, but not this one. She was a tough physical match-up for us."
Saratoga even played a box-and-one defense -- one girl on Sankey man-to-man and four in a zone -- but it didn't help that much.
Still, Davey was pleased with his girls overall.
"We overachieved," he said. "We played in the A league this season and came in fourth place. We had three really tough teams in our league in Palo Alto, Los Gatos and Mountain View and so that was six losses right there. We lost a lot of close games."
Mikayla Davis led Saratoga with 21 points and Samie Davey added nine.
