Midway through the NBL-Redwood season, it didn’t look like Healdsburg was headed for a repeat championship in girls basketball. They were 4-1 in league as February began, their only loss coming to Ukiah on the road 46-42. Three straight wins followed until, on Jan. 21, they suffered a surprise loss to St. Vincent de Paul, Petaluma’s parochial school (and the only school in the league with an enrollment smaller than Healdsburg’s).
Then, two weeks later, they lost to Ukiah again, this time by a single basket, 43-41. With a record of 5-3, it was more league losses than team had endured since they finished second in 2022 behind Maria Carrillo.
They won their next three league games, and pulled off a revenge win over St. Vincent on the last day of the regular season, 47-26, to seal second place. But the Greyhounds ended the season at 7-3, second behind 10-0 Ukiah as the NBL-Redwood division pennant winners.
But hold on a minute. The league also has a championship tournament after the regular season, an elimination between the top four finishers. And though it’s rare, it does sometimes happen that the tournament trophy goes to a different team than the pennant.
Tournament Begins
Healdsburg met St. Vincent – for the second time in five days – in the Smith Robinson Gym on Feb. 11 to begin the tourney. The Mustangs were ready to take their own revenge, but Healdsburg had to battle a barrage of questionable foul calls (11 against St. Vincent, 21 against Healdsburg). Thankfully, a 15-point game from junior Amelia Wickersham was what it took for the Greyhounds to pull off the 39-35 win to advance.
Meanwhile Ukiah was unstoppable, easily defeating Santa Rosa in the first round, 50-28. With two wins over Healdsburg so far this year, it was Ukiah’s hope to take home the glass trophy as well as the flag. But the Lady Greyhounds had other ideas.
The league finals are played at Rancho Cotate’s slick Theater-Auditorium-Gym complex, known as TAG. For a few minutes in the first quarter it looked like Ukiah might get the glass, too. Then Allie Espinoza sank a basket just as the first quarter ended, giving Healdsburg the 11-10 one-point lead.
Heat of the Game
After two previous games, these are players know each other’s moves well. It was tight, competitive basketball – and as girls basketball games often are, surprisingly combative. Whole minutes could go by on the game clock without either team scoring a point but wrestling for ball control, only to find it stolen away. The fighting for possession was frequent and physical, and beneath the net was no place to get stuck by accident.
Penalties were another matter. There were plenty of foul calls, but this time equally distributed, and often clearly uncontestable. Healdsburg was called for 13 fouls, Ukiah for 16, and jump balls were frequent (possession going alternately to each team).
Healdsburg made their move in the second quarter, when the Hounds scored 14 in the quarter while holding the Wildcats to 8. Not a big difference, but it was enough to extend the lead to 25-18, and from there on all the Greyhounds had to do was keep it.
The high level of competitive play continued for another two quarters, but the Wildcats could never take the lead.
But as the clock ticked the minutes, then the seconds down, Healdsburg looked more and more like a winner. A stomping chant, “Let’s Go Healdsburg!” rumbled from the Rancho bleachers. The final score was 39-33, Healdsburg.
Ruby Delivers
For the Greyhounds, Ruby Leffew delivered when she had to. She had her best game of the year by far, scoring 21 points including four 3-pointers – and five out of six free-throws in the fourth quarter, the only points the team got in the board in the final frame. Allie Espinoza only scored 6 points, and suffered a black eye in the process.
For the Wildcats, high scorer was Lexie Aguilar with 9 points. Samantha Wood was held to just 5 points, missing four free-throws in the crucial fourth quarter while making only two.
At the end of the game, then, Ukiah gets the pennant to hang on their gym wall, and congratulations to them for a fine season. Healdsburg has a gleaming glass trophy, proclaiming them the winners of the North Bay League Redwood Girls Basketball Tournament Champions, 2025, for the third year in a row.
But the playoff season isn’t over: the NCS championship tournament starts Feb. 18, and continues that weekend and the next until March 1. The division a team is placed in may not reflect their size-based division, but includes their playing record and state rankings as well. Marguglio believes, “70% chance we are in Division 2, 30% chance we’re in Division 3, almost 0% we’re in Division four,” despite the fact that Healdsburg is a Division 4 school based on size.
UPDATE: His hope for a higher seed, so Healdsburg can host a tournament match this week, was dashed on Monday, when the NCS announced that Healdsburg was selected as a Division 2 team, and seeded #14. Their first playoff game will be Tuesday, but it will be in Hayward against #3 seed Moreau Catholic. Look for the results in the next Healdsburg Tribune.
