Clovis High Girls Basketball Falls 73-66 to Centennial in CIF State Final

Yazmin Aguilera bookended the CIF Division I girls state championship game Friday night at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, making both the first and last 3-pointers Clovis High attempted. She finished with seven made threes, a state final record. It still wasn't enough.

Centennial of Corona beat the Cougars 73-66, ending a season in which Clovis went 26-11, won the Tri-River Athletic Conference title at 9-1, and advanced to the state final through the CIF Northern California regionals after losing to Clovis West in the Central Section Division I championship.

Aguilera led Clovis with 21 points on the strength of that record-breaking shooting performance. Multiple outlets reported her seven made threes also tied the Division I boys state championship record, attributed to Klay Thompson. Clovis as a team shot 11-of-21 from 3-point range. Junior Amieya Walters added 16 points and held her own against a Centennial frontcourt that loomed over the Cougars at nearly every position.

The size mismatch was evident from tipoff. Centennial's frontcourt featured 6-foot-7 sophomore Sydney Douglas and 6-4 senior Cydnee Bryant, a McDonald's All-American and Kansas signee. Head coach Cooper Steele said the matchup had been on his mind since October. "We saw them in Vegas in October, and we were like, look at those big girls, imagine if we had to play them," he said.

Despite the disadvantage, Clovis kept pace. The game was tied at 33 at halftime, and the Cougars actually built a six-point lead midway through the third quarter. Then Centennial answered with a 12-0 run that shifted the game's momentum for good. The Huskies struggled to fully separate until the final minute, but the Cougars could not recover the deficit.

Senior point guard Sadie Sin, headed to Long Beach State, scored 11 of her 19 points in the second half and finished with seven assists. Steele was direct about her legacy. "Sadie is the most selfless superstar I've ever met, someone who scores 2,000 points doesn't share the ball like she does but she did it she sacrificed she could've gotten 3,000 if she wanted," he said.

For Sin, the final buzzer closed a decorated high school career. "It's a little kind of bittersweet right now. I mean, I'm really content with our season. We definitely are in the position we are today, and I couldn't be more grateful to be around these girls every day. So it just means a lot," she said.

Steele pointed to Clovis's preparation at venues like Selland Arena and against top-tier competition as the reason the state final stage didn't overwhelm his players. "We've played in Selland Arena, we've played in two of the top teams in the nation, we compete every single day. Doesn't surprise me one bit, I knew we'd be ready for the moment," he said.

Aguilera framed the season's final statement the same way. "I think that it shows that we could battle with everyone and we won't back down and we'll play to the very end too. We'll play very hard and give it our all," she said.

Senior guard Milly Rojas, who spent the fourth quarter guarding Bryant in stretches, was also cited as a key contributor throughout the run. Clovis finishes at 26-11, with a state final appearance as the capstone.