OAKLAND — The twin towers of Oakland Tech have been taken down — by a 5-foot-6 freshman point guard.
Janelle Solis, Piedmont’s phenom floor general, had a slingshot for each of them as the Highlanders went into the Bulldogs’ gym and left with a 60-29 victory in the first round of the CIF NorCal girls basketball regional.
Solis’ 12 points don’t begin to illustrate her impact. Her ball-handling and playmaking had No. 9 seed Piedmont rolling from the opening tip. The eighth-seeded Bulldogs never found their footing.
“She’s better than advertised,” Oakland Tech coach Leroy Hurt said. “I thought we could contain her. I’m used to containing anybody. Not tonight. She got in the lane. Got foul calls. She had a good game, played well and controlled the game.”
Tech’s duo of junior bigs, Jhai Johnson and Terri’A Russell, had little impact despite their significant size advantage. Johnson got in early foul trouble, but Hurt left her in, hoping the Bulldogs would settle down.
But she picked up her fourth foul with five minutes left in the second quarter. The hosts were down 24 when she sat. Johnson finished with six points.
Without their best player cooking, Oakland Tech went down hard. The Bulldogs won nine games by at least 30 points this season. But Piedmont flipped the script.
Making the night even sweeter for the Highlanders: they get a home game now. That’s because No. 16 San Joaquin Memorial upset top-seeded Folsom on Tuesday night. So Piedmont will host the Panthers on Thursday night at 7 p.m. for a spot in the NorCal semifinals.
The Highlanders (24-5) would love to start the game like they did at Oakland Tech (20-10). Piedmont opened with a 14-0 run. Solis, using her quickness and tight handle, knifed her way through the Bulldogs’ defense and broke into paint repeatedly. She scored seven points in the first quarter, drilling a three-pointer and making all four of her free throws.
She controlled the tempo and kept a dazed Bulldogs team off balance all night long.
Piedmont’s strategy of swarming the Tech bigs and forcing other players to beat them worked perfectly. And with Solis and Briana Webb — who led Piedmont with 19 points — attacking them inside and getting them in foul trouble, the Highlanders neutralized Tech’s size advantage.
The Bulldogs didn’t score their first basket until six minutes, 30 seconds into the game, when Johnson was fouled on a layup.
“Normally we’re the team to get hit in the mouth and we usually have to pick ourselves up,” Piedmont coach Bryan Gardere said. “Today, we were doing the swinging and then trying to hold onto it. But we knew they were going to put up a good fight because Oakland Tech is a great program.”
Piedmont behind Solis was just steady. She found her teammates repeatedly. They scored bucket after bucket, drew foul after foul. The girls in black stunned the packed house at Oakland Tech, who rarely see the Bulldogs get dominated.
Tech’s success this season begins and ends with Johnson and Russell, who finished with nine points. They came into the game averaging a combined 35.4 points on the season. Tuesday night, they were 20 points below that average.
The Highlanders made sure those two felt pressured. They contested every layup. They boxed out Johnson and Russell aggressively all night long, frustrating them. Both were visibly agitated and off their game. Those frustrations led to four fouls for Russell and Johnson fouling out of the game one minute into the fourth quarter — all but guaranteeing the Bulldogs’ early exit from the tournament.
“I’m at a loss for words,” Hurt said. “You’ve got to give them credit. I’ve been warning the kids that we’ve got to be more than those two players all year. Clearly we weren’t tonight. Foul trouble hurt with Jhai. But they didn’t play well.”
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