Sierra Canyon girls basketball rallies past Ontario Christian to win Open title

ONTARIO — Cool, calm and collected.

Those were the emotions of Sierra Canyon girls basketball senior guard Delaney White. She battled with foul trouble throughout the night, having four in the third quarter. Through it all, she stayed ready.

During a fast break for Sierra Canyon, the ball found her hands behind the arc. She squared up, took her shot and drilled it. A smile ran along her face, and the rest of her team as Sierra Canyon took a five-point lead late in the fourth.

The composure left the faces of the Trailblazers (30-2) as the buzzer sounded, with tears and smiles soon replacing them as they beat the Ontario Christian Knights (31-2) 69-62 to win the CIF-SS Open Division girls basketball championship.

“I was telling (Jerzy Robinson) that someone’s coming behind her,” White said. “And she saw me, and I was wide open. I practiced that shot many times … I just felt confident in taking it… even though I was sitting out for a long time, I trusted my team. I knew they’re gonna be fine without me on the court … So me knocking that shot down, they made all that happen.”

Sierra Canyon senior guard Jerzy Robinson finished with a team-high 32 points and eight rebounds. She battled through contact and hustled down the floor.

All the effort showed in the last eight seconds, when she realized her team had won. The smile couldn’t leave her face as she ran around the court, celebrating with her teammates. The strong bond the Trailblazers share was evident during the celebration — screams and hugs were constant in the short time they had on the court.

“This is a championship,” Robinson said. “We won it. We just wanted it, super bad. We put in the time to work every day, and it’s nothing but high emotions when we get the job done.”

Ontario Christian junior guard Kaleena Smith was a tough cover, ranked as the No. 1 recruit in the 2027 class by 247Sports. The added difficulty in guarding her was the Knights’ pick-and-rolls.

If Sierra Canyon went under the screens, space for Smith to shoot, if they blitzed Smith, it’d leave space for the roller to have a wide-open mid-range shot. Throughout it all, Robinson made sure she traveled with Smith. Smith ended the night with 30 points, but was held to only four points in the final quarter.

“A ball screen with Kaleena (Smith) scares anybody,” Sierra Canyon head coach Alicia Komaki said. “And our thing was just, ‘let’s stay confident in what we do.’ I think we’re a very good ball-screen defensive team. We have different coverages. We had different people guard her; we had different matchups. We did all the things, and that was the game plan to throw everything we had at them.”