By Ed Piper
La Jolla's girls are pretty excited about how they have done this year.
"We've been winning games," said guard-forward Imani Trinadad-Gallagher, a senior, earlier this week.
Coach Darice Carnaje's Vikings, carrying a 6-4 league record and a respectable 10-10 record overall, draw Otay Ranch (2-10, 14-14) as their first round opponent in the CIF playoffs Wed., Feb. 21. The game is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the South Bay school.
One of the head-scratchers of playoff brackets is the fact that a team like the Mustangs, who only won two games while losing five times that many in their conference play, can receive a higher seed than La Jolla, which had a winning record in its conference play.
The difference between the fourth-seed Otayers and the 13th-seed Norseladies is strength of schedule: the Mustangs' opponents across the span of the season have been better teams.
However, all of that is a wash as soon as the ball is tipped off Wednesday night. It has been a few years coming for the LJ'ers, since La Jolla had failed to field a team capable of qualifying for the postseason in Carnaje's first two years at the helm, in addition to the season prior in which the Viking cupboard was pretty bare after star center Madeleine Gates decided she had to cut down on her commitments and focus on volleyball alone.
With Gates choosing not to return for her junior season after leading the team to the CIF championship game against Central Union, other Vikings also chose not to return. It was back to rebuild mode at that point.
One thing notable about Carnaje's team is that, when a player leaves the floor for a substitute, the entire team stands from their seats on the bench and extends a hand to the exiting player. On some teams such behavior may be superficial, but Carnaje, a veteran coach who led multiple championship teams at OLP over a decade's time prior to her three years at LJHS, preaches and demands team cohesiveness and unity. It has served the team well this year.
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