St. Mary's trailing Pinnacle 26-20 at halftime?. What kind of yelling and screaming did Lady Knights coach Curtis Ekmark do with his team at intermission?

None.

"I apologized to them," Ekmark said. "I tried to outsmart myself. We were playing passive and trying not to give up threes..... We had to go out  and play the way we play. Pressure. If we went down that way, fine. But that's the way we've played all year. That's what won it for us."

St. Mary's benfitted from a bounty of 17 second-half turnovers from Pinnacle on Saturday afternoon and finally shrugged off the determined Pioneers, 49-37, to win the Division I title at Jobing.com Arena.

St. Mary's (29-1) in winning its third straight big-school title, also captured its 60th win in succession over an Arizona opponent and notched the seventh girls hoops title in school history. Pinnacle lost only three games -- twice to St. Mary's and once to Windward, (Los Angeels, Calif.) to go along with 33 wins. Pinnacle remained winless in title games, settling for second for the sixth time in the last seven years.

St. Mary's trailed at halftime due to a 14-0 run produced by Pinnacle over the the final 5 1/2 minutes of the second perod. The Lady Knights responded with a 14-0 run of their own in the third to turn the game around. St. Mary's led 37-30 after three periods.

"We live and die by the three and today we died by it," Pinnacle coch Troy Wiese said, not knowing the exact stat of 5-for-23 from 3-point range for the game. "They pressured us, and we turned it over. We still got a lot of good looks. I knew in the second half they'd come at us like double piranhas."

Danielle and Dominique Wiliams and Courtney Ekmark often are the catalysts for St. Mary's pressure tactics. They combined for four steals in the first half and finished with a combined 16. Pinnacle's turnovers were part pressure, part panic-carelessness in the second half.

Pinnacle staved off a small  8-0 run by St. Mary's to begin the second quarter before unveiling its 14-0 burst. Even after St. Mary's went on its 14-0 run in the third, Pinnacle whittled a 37-28 deficit to 37-35 with 5:25 to play. Back-to-back steal by Ekmark led to two layups (one by Ekmark and one by Danielle Williams seconds apart that pumped the lead back to 41-35). Pinnacle's last points came on a Sydney Wiese layup with 4:39 to play.

Curtins Ekmark praised Pinnacle in building its first-half lead

"To their credit they played the game they wanted," Ekmark said. "The second half I thought we played lock-down defense."

Pinnacle was one of very few teams to survive two of St. Mary's patented runs and still make a game of it in the final minutes.

"I'm so proud of these girls," Wiese said. "They got the lead down to four (two) even after that second run. I was looking at MaxPreps the other day and there's like 11,000 teams. It's like Doug Collins said, "If you finish second you're not a champion, but you're still a winner'."

St. Mary's has featured a lineup all season consisting of six players -- five of whom have signed letters of intent for this fall (Chantel Osahor-Washington), (Dominique Williams-UCLA), Danielle Williams (Michigan), Chloe Johnson (San Diego State) and (Brandee Walton-New Mexico State) and verbal commit (Courtney Ekmark-Connecticut). Courtney Ekmark led St. Mary's with 14 points and six steals. Osahor had nine points, 10 rebounds and four assists. Dominique Williams had eight points and four steals and Danielle Williams seven points and six steals.

"I couldn't imagine having a better group," Curtis Ekmark said. "How do we stack up with best teams. I'll leave that for someone else to decide. Winning 60 games in a row against Arizona teams, a national championship and three state titles. That's pretty good. They're better kids than they are basketball players."

Britta Nordstrom led Pinnacle with 12 points and Kenna McDavis chipped in with 11. Leading scorer Sydney Wiese finished with just seven and a very off-game from the field (3-of-14).

Dominique Williams, one of a handful of Lady Knights to play in four title games in four seasons and win three, looked back on a great high school time for her and her teammates.

"It's just a great experience" she said. "It took a lot of hard work, and we lost the first one but came back stronger because we lost. I wish we could have won all four, but you can't always be perfect."