Highlanders host Antelope on March 3
The Piedmont High School girls basketball team will continue its season in the California Interscholastic Federation Division 1 championships with a familiar foe. The Highlanders will host Antelope on March 3 at 7 p.m., a team Piedmont has played twice each of the past two seasons.
“They’re a good team,” Highlanders coach Bryan Gardere said. “It’s hard to beat a team three times.”
Normally schools don’t play nonleague foes twice in a season unless they meet in a tournament. However, both schools needed games as they put together their 2024-25 schedules. Antelope is 17 miles from Sacramento so deciding which team would host was important.
“I know the coach (Sean Chambers),” Gardere said. “He needed four games and we needed two games. I said, ‘We’ll come to you.’ Then I said, ‘If we come to you and you still need games, why not come to us?’
“We know they’re a quality opponent. This is like a playoff game. You wouldn’t normally do that. Since were not in the same section.”
The teams split the two games a year ago. This season, Piedmont swept, winning 57-37 at home on January 24 and 61-56 in overtime on February 7.
The Highlanders are 21-4 after beating Clayton Valley on February 27 in the North Coast Section Open Division third place game. They were awarded the third seed in CIF Division 1. The CIF has flexibility with how many teams to place in its Open Division, going with nine this year. Theoretically, that makes Piedmont No. 12 overall in Northern California.
The Titans are seeded 14th after falling 69-61 in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division 1 championship game to Christian Brothers-Sacramento on February 27. Antelope is 25-5.
The Highlanders have been limping along with multiple injuries during the season, including to all three of their standout sophomores: point guard Janelle Solis missed all but one game since December with a broken bone in her foot; forward Andrea Martin hurt her tailbone in a game against San Leandro; and power forward Savannah Dennig suffered a sprained Achilles tendon in a playoff game against Cardinal Newman. Solis and Martin are both playing. Dennig is done for the season.
“We have film (of Antelope),” Gardere said. “We’ve played them in the last month. We didn’t have Jenelle. We had Savannah. Now we have Jenelle and don’t have Savannah.
“The first game they didn’t shoot it well at all, the second game I think they made 11 3-pointers. Three or four (players) were knocking some shots down. They use five guards. It can be a challenging matchup for us.”
Piedmont is in the CIF playoffs for the fourth consecutive season. The Highlanders won a pair of Division 4 titles in 2003-04 and 2004-05 when they were led by the Paris twins.