To see the energy and determination Sierra Canyon coach Alicia Komaki showed during a do-or-die game for the Southern Section Open Division girls\u2019 basketball title against No. 1-seeded Ontario Christian let everyone know she was ready for this long-anticipated moment.<\/p>\n
When it was over and Sierra Canyon had won at Toyota Arena, the feeling could not have been more fulfilling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been more happy with a group of people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
All season, the Trailblazers had been plodding along preparing for the inevitable matchup of No. 1 vs. No. 2. Ontario Christian and Etiwanda had been the roadblocks in recent years in denying Sierra Canyon a chance to dance. This time, Komaki wasn\u2019t going to allow it to happen.<\/p>\n
With All-American Jerzy Robinson leaving everything she had on the court in her epic battle against All-American Kaleena Smith, Sierra Canyon prevailed 69-62. The Trailblazers also eliminated Etiwanda 66-62.<\/p>\n
For taking down the No. 1 seed and steering her team to the championship in one of America\u2019s toughest girls\u2019 basketball divisions, Komaki has been selected The Times\u2019 coach of the year.<\/p>\n
She was the one who decided to have the 6-foot-1 Robinson guard the 5-6 Smith despite a difference in quickness. It made all the difference in the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To see the energy and determination Sierra Canyon coach Alicia Komaki showed during a do-or-die game for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[104958,104961,10658,104960,92039,25074,104959,69317,9514,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,18158,27411,29947,30259,72],"class_list":["post-231370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alicia-komaki","tag-all-american-kaleena-smith","tag-basketball-coach","tag-basketball-division","tag-basketball-title","tag-difference","tag-do-or-die-game","tag-etiwanda","tag-girl","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-no","tag-ontario-christian","tag-sierra-canyon","tag-trailblazers","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}