For a quarter, the Oceanside girls’ basketball team looked frustrated, flustered and stuck in neutral.

Then Bailey Breen and the Mariners got rolling. And following a familiar script, there was no stopping the Mariners on their way to the Class B South final.

Breen scored 26 points, including 12 in a game-turning second quarter, and top-seeded Oceanside reached its third straight regional final with a 53-37 victory Tuesday over fourth-seeded Lake Region at the Portland Expo.

For the third straight year, the Mariners will take a 20-0 record into the South final. And for the second season in a row, they’ll put in on the line against Spruce Mountain, which beat them last year and defeated Medomak Valley, 40-34, in the other semifinal on Tuesday.

“The first quarter, we didn’t settle in. We were kind of rushing some stuff, we didn’t really execute,” said Oceanside Coach Matt Breen, who also got nine points from Renee Ripley, eight from Sophia Daggett and seven from Aubrianna Hoose. “We came out in the second wanting to focus on execution, getting Bailey the ball and playing the high-low game, and we did a good job of that.”

Margo Tremblay scored 14 points for the Lakers (13-7), while Bella Smith added 13.

Lake Region had the start it was looking for with a 15-9 first-quarter lead, but Oceanside went to Breen for six baskets in the paint en route to a 32-22 halftime lead.

“We just had to adjust, and get those jitters out,” said Bailey Breen, who had six rebounds. “We’ve got some girls that get a little nervous before the games. … We just had to settle down, slow down, play to our strengths and we got rolling.”

 

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The Mariners thinned out the defensive attention on the 6-foot-3 Breen by using the 6-foot Daggett at the elbow, with Breen on the block, and Daggett frequently fed Breen inside for easy baskets.

“Sophie … just has a knack for getting to the rim when the double goes,” Matt Breen said. “She’s done a nice job finishing for us and she’s outstanding on the glass.”

Daggett had nine rebounds to go with her eight points.

“With both of our height, it’s good to play off each other,” she said. “Bailey’s so good at finishing. … It works really well with us, with our chemistry.”

Lake Region cut the deficit to 34-27 on a Smith jumper, but Ripley hit a 3-pointer to push it back to 10 with 4:48 left in the third quarter. The Lakers didn’t get within nine points the rest of the way.

“We didn’t react to (Oceanside’s inside game) well, and it’s not like we didn’t know it was coming,” Lake Region Coach Doug Banks said. “We just picked a bad time to get nervous. We practice it, we knew it was coming, we didn’t react to it well.”

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