4A GIRLS: Reno starts fast, stuns Centennial

RENO — Centennial coach Karen Weitz was at a loss to explain it.

So was just about everyone else in the Lawlor Events Center at UNR.

After all, it seemed a foregone conclusion that the Bulldogs would defeat Reno on their way to another Class 4A girls basketball state title.

Centennial didn’t even make it to the championship game.

Reno, twice routed by the Bulldogs during the regular season, stunned Centennial 60-41 in a state semifinal Thursday. The Huskies (27-5) advanced to the final at 6 p.m. Friday against fellow Northern school Reed (22-2), which defeated Foothill, 59-45.

Centennial’s blowout defeat shocked Weitz, who said, “That’s not my team. They didn’t come to play, plain and simple.

“You think you’re going to come out and beat a team because you’re lackadaisical. Not at this stage. I tried to warn them about this.”

The Bulldogs never recovered after Reno made its first four shots, including three 3-pointers, for an 11-0 lead.

“We came out and hit some 3s and got a lead, and (our players) started to believe in themselves,” said Reno coach Shane Foster, whose team lost to Centennial by 26 and 22 points in two December meetings. “Once they started believing in themselves, the adrenaline kept flowing.”

Centennial (29-3) got as close as 41-37 on Jada Brown’s stick-back basket with 7:16 left, but the Huskies rattled off the next eight points and removed most of the doubt.

As it turned out, Brown’s basket was Centennial’s last. The Bulldogs shot 1-for-16 in the fourth quarter and were unable to mount a rally.

Centennial usually plays a high-octane pressure defense that forces bunches of turnovers and leads to easy baskets in transition. That didn’t happen Thursday.

“What defense? Did we play any defense?” Weitz said.

Reno committed only 13 turnovers, but the Bulldogs didn’t score in transition and were held to a season scoring low.

“They didn’t get a lot of easy looks,” Foster said.

Weitz said: “It wasn’t just us. Give credit to Reno. They did what they needed to do.”

Breanna Workman scored 11 points to lead Centennial. Brown had 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Gigi Hascheff made three 3-pointers in the first quarter and scored 18 of her 26 points in the first half as Centennial kept Reno sharpshooter Shannon Gough away from the ball for the first 2½ quarters.

“Gigi was huge in this game,” said Foster, whose team hit 7 of 17 3-point shots in the first half.

Sierra Sobrio added 10 points, all in the second half for Reno, which is the last Northern Nevada team to win a Class 4A girls state title, doing so in 2001. The last 10 championships were won by either Centennial and Bishop Gorman, a streak guaranteed to end Friday.