Yellow Jackets win regional title

The hoorahs were louder than they’ve ever been Monday night, conjured up from deep inside the soul of every Osbourn Park girls’ basketball player — and their head coach, too.

They’d waited their entire varsity careers to celebrate a Northwest Region championship and when the moment finally arrived with a resounding 66-48 victory over arch nemesis Stonewall Jackson, their emotions overflowed with a perfect mixture of joy, redemption and pride.

“It’s something you dream of as a player,” senior guard Kelly Hamner said. “To have it come true my senior year is awesome.”

The Yellow Jackets (19-4) have already achieved more than any team that has preceded them, yet they aren’t nearly ready to stop making history.

Having clinched the program’s first Group AAA state tournament berth with a victory at Mountain View on Saturday, the players accomplished something entirely for themselves in the region final.

Beating the Raiders means more on a personal level than it does on an athletic one, mainly because it has been such an elusive goal. Hamner was a freshman reserve the last time that OP defeated

Stonewall Jackson in girls’ basketball — Jan. 5, 2007 — and Jackets coach Cliff Gorham has been trying, unsuccessfully, for three seasons to upstage his Manassas neighbor.

Until Monday night, when Osbourn Park played one of its finest games ever — building an insurmountable 12-point second-quarter lead and limiting the Cedar Run District champions to their second-lowest point total of the year.

“This is better than Christmas,” Gorham exclaimed, after the center-court euphoria spilled into a nearby hallway adjacent to Stonewall’s gymnasium.

There were hoorahs aplenty and, more importantly, a trophy to accompany them.

“We lost our districts two years in a row to them. We haven’t beaten them since Cliff’s been here,” Hamner said. “It’s a big exciting win for us.”

Senior center Rachel Gordon (16 points, 14 rebounds) matched the muscle and might of Stonewall’s great Joy Caracciolo (23 points, 9 rebounds) and OP received double-figure performances from four players to snap the Raiders’ 11-game winning streak.

Destiny Shearin, Katie Tassa and Destiny White finished with 11 points each, while Alexis Carter and Hamner each scored eight points as the Jackets advanced to Saturday’s 5:45 p.m. Group AAA state quarterfinal game against West Springfield at Robinson High School. Stonewall Jackson will play Northern Region champion Oakton at 2:30 p.m.

“When we share the ball, that’s when we get more points,” Gordon said. “If we don’t do that we’re not going to win.”

The Jackets shared the ball as if their nine-game losing streak to Stonewall had never happened.

They remained poised as Raiders’ senior point guard Kyani White (17 points) confirmed her place as the best player in the program’s history — by surpassing Gwen Washington as Stonewall’s career scoring leader — and then held off a third-quarter rally that briefly narrowed their lead to one point.

Even after Carter limped to the bench with leg cramps in the fourth quarter, reducing their rotation to five players, the Jackets stuck together and wound up closing out the game with a 20-11 run.

“That’s a veteran team,” Raiders coach Nsonji White said. “They were ready. I give OP a lot of credit. During the course of the game everybody we talked about did what they usually do. It’s the first time in [four] years and it’s a big one to win.”

The entire post season has been one big win after another for Osbourn Park, dating back to the Cardinal District Tournament and that last-second victory over Potomac that produced the biggest basket in school history: Katie Tassa’s game-winning 3-pointer.

“We talk about it every day,” Hamner said. “The only reason we’re here is because of Katie’s three. Every time she walks past that spot, she smiles.”

Now the Jackets have some fond memories at Stonewall to take with them as well.

“It’s been a long road,” Gordon said. “And I feel like this team can go even farther.”

NORTHWEST REGION TOURNAMENT
CHAMPIONSHIP

OSBOURN PARK 66,
STONEWALL JACKSON 48

OSBOURN PARK (19-4)

Hamner 4 0-0 8, Carter 3 2-2 9, White 3 3-7 11, Shearin 4 3-3 11, Tassa 3 5-6 11, Gordon 7 2-3 16. Totals 24 15-21 66.

STONEWALL JACKSON (18-2)

White 6 1-4 17, Mpohfe 0 0-0 0, Jordan 2 1-2 5, Hinton 1 0-0 3, Caracciolo 10 3-3 23, K. Smith 0 0-0 0, Cameron 0 0-0 0, Newsome 0 0-0 0. Totals 19 5-9 48.

Halftime — Osbourn Park 34-24. 3-point goals — Osbourn Park 3 (White 2, Carter); Stonewall 5 (White 4, Hinton).