Pali High Tops Warriors in Troy Classic

Four years ago today, Palisades High’s girls basketball team defeated West Torrance 62-46 to finish with a 2-2 record at the Troy Winter Hoops Classic in Fullerton. The Dolphins outscored their Southern Section opponents 17-6 in the fourth quarter and were led by senior guard Chelsey Gipson, who made five three-point shots and tallied a game-high 30 points. The Dolphins’ 2016-17 roster also featured senior forward and captain Caytlnn Gorden, senior point guard Chaniya Pickett, sophomore guard Kayla Williams and freshman forward Jane Nwaba, who graduated from Palisades in June and is now a freshman at Pepperdine. Gipson won the Post Cup Award that year as Pali High’s outstanding athlete after guiding the Dolphins to their third straight City Open Division final, where they were dethroned by Western League rival Fairfax 82-80 in overtime. Palisades then traveled south to San Diego to play La Jolla Country Day in the first round of the CIF Division I state playoffs and lost 67-49 to wind up 25-10 in their final season under head coach Torino Johnson, who is now the head women’s coach at Cal State LA. Gipson  played in all 35 of Palisades’ games, averaging 24.4 points, 4.2 rebounds, 3.1 steals and 2.6 assists per game. She completed her senior campaign ranked No. 2 in the country in three-pointers made with 147 (two behind Destiny Littleton from La Jolla Bishop’s) and third in scoring among Division I girls in California with 856 points. She was chosen the John R. Wooden Award’s City Player of the Year and made the American Family Insurance All-State second team. She won three Open Division titles in high school (one at Windward and two at Palisades) and just began her senior season at Loyola Marymount University, where she was the Lions’ second-highest scorer (13 points a game) and earned West Coast Conference honorable mention as a junior last winter. Williams transferred to Bishop Montgomery as a junior in 2017-18 and helped the Knights  capture the Del Rey League title and take fifth in the Southern Section Open Division playoffs. Nwaba paced the Dolphins to City titles in 2019 and 2020.