Falcon girls hoops walk over Carmel, Mercy and into finals

The Scotts Valley lady Falcons Basketball team finds themselves in the biggest venue in the schools basketball history.
The action continues with this Fridays’ championship game at Santa Clara University at 3 p.m. where the Falcons are battling for their first ever Central Coast Section title.
No Scotts Valley basketball team, girls or boys, have made it this far in the CCS tournament play. The girls teams have never made it past the quarter-finals in CCS play. But here they are, the Falcons (22-5) are the No.1 seed, going into the final game against the No.2 seeded Notre Dame of Belmont (13-14).
Scotts Valley 55, Mercy 43
The Lady Falcons had a score to settle with Mercy High of San Francisco. For the last two years, senior Liz Munger and Junior Natalia Ebrahemian have had to bow out of the Central Coast Section playoffs thanks to the Skippers of Mercy High. This year the tide was turned. Munger and Ebrahemian have been joined by a feisty crew of freshman, forming a squad that compliments each other in a perfect harmony.
Tuesday night the Falcons again put on a rebounding extravaganza grabbing a whopping 52 rebounds against the Skippers with both Munger and freshman Nadene Hart both pulling in 16 boards a piece. Ebrahemian grabbed twelve on her way to a double-double leading the Falcons in scoring with 14 points. Munger scored 12 for her double-double, and freshman Angela Silver scored 11. Fellow Freshman Tori McBride hit a three Pointer and five of her six free throws ending up with eight points on the night.
The Falcons stingy defense held the Skippers leading scorer, 5-11 junior Courtney Sabahi, to just four second half points after Sabahi had 13 in the first half. They made some pertinent adjustments at the half and kept Sabahi more or less out of the action for the rest of the game, and cruised into the finals.
Scotts Valley 65, Carmel 37
Sophomore Nicole Whitney had the game of her career against Carmel High in the Central Coast Section Playoffs, as the Falcons rolled over Carmel 65-37. Though she didn’t lead the team in scoring she drained a critical jumper at the first-half buzzer and then turned it on in the second-half for a career-high 14 points in the game, including two 3-pointers.
Junior Natalia Ebrahemian led the Falcons with 16 points, followed by Whitney, Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League MVP, senior Liz Munger had a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
The Falcons trailed the Padres 11-10 in the first quarter but after initiating a full court press turned the tide. Carmel was 14-0 in Mission Trail Athletic League play, and was 23-2 going into the game. Once The Falcons started the press, the score reflected why they were given the No.1 seeding in the tournament. Scotts Valley got a steal that turned into an Ebrahimian layup for her 10th straight point. The Falcons then went on a 24-6 point run in the second quarter as the Padres missed 18 shots in the period and found themselves trailing 42-17 going into halftime.
Scotts Valley will face No. 5 seeded Mercy High School in the semifinals on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Notre Dame-Belmont. Mercy squeezed out a win in a tight game against No. 4 Menlo 56-55 in the quarterfinals. Mercy has been building a rivalry with the Falcons as they were the team who has knocked the Falcons out of CCS contention both times in the past two seasons.