What a difference a couple weeks make.

There wasn’t much to smile about for the Marin Catholic High girls basketball team after losing to Redwood in the MCAL championship game two weeks ago as they moved on to the North Coast Section tournament.

Saturday was a much happier story for the Wildcats after clinching their fourth consecutive NCS title against top-seeded Justin-Siena, 64-55 in the Division II final, on the Braves’ home court.

The game was originally scheduled to be played at Napa High, but moved to Justin-Siena due to a scoreboard issue.

In their past three section title victories, MC was the top seed and was able to hold form to win those, but as the third seed this time around the Wildcats had to knock off No. 2 University in the semifinals and then No. 1 Justin in the finals.

MC has now won 14 consecutive NCS games.

“With our season and what we’ve had to fight through … this is our toughest NCS final, but I think it’s also been the most rewarding one,” said Izzy McFadden, who led the charge with a game-high 26 points. “It shows how far we’ve come. We lost to University at the beginning of the season and we beat them. We lost to Justin earlier in the season and we beat them, too.”

The Braves (27-3), who entered Saturday’s contest on a 19-game win streak, looked poised to win the program’s first NCS title since 2008 with senior Jordan Washington leading the way.

The 6-foot-1 center dropped a career-high 32 points on MC (21-11) in late January during Justin’s lopsided victory.

Saturday it appeared like this one was heading in that same direction as she had 10 points in the first quarter and her two free throws just 30 seconds in the second quarter gave the Braves’ their biggest lead at 31-18.

That’s when McFadden and Cecelia Biernat took over offensively. Both finished the quarter with nine points to fuel MC’s 20-4 run.

Biernat banked in a shot to beat the buzzer to score her final points of the game to give the Wildcats a 38-35 halftime lead.

“We had the same mindset throughout,” said Brooke Spagnuolo, who was the only other MC player to finish in double figures with 13 points. “We were able to click in when we needed it most in that second quarter. The bench came in and showed their support. All this energy from the coaches. It was what boosted us and made us play even harder together.”

The third quarter also belonged to MC, which outscored the Braves 15-4, culminating with McFadden’s late 3-pointer to push the lead to 14 with eight minutes to go. McFadden hit four shots from behind the arc, all coming in different quarters.

Jocelyn Gigounas had six of her eight points during that third period to spark the run. She scored MC’s first six points on a pair of tough drives to the basket and also hit two of her four free throws to make it a 44-37 advantage halfway through the third quarter.

The Braves made it interesting in the final frame.

Dylan Zapolski’s 3-pointer cut the lead to 59-54, but Sienna Frazier (seven points) hit 3 of 4 free throws in the final minute to ice it.

Gigounas’ defensive rebound with 27 seconds left made the excitement palpable for MC’s bench of what was about to come.

“We were really happy to get the win against University and wanted to see if we could get another upset .. and we did,” Frazier said. “We were confident coming in, we know they have some good players but we’ve gotten a lot better since that game. We just came in with the mentality that we could win another upset and our focus was on defense and that’s what we were able to do.”

Spagnuolo, who beat the first-quarter buzzer with a much-needed 3-pointer to cut Justin’s lead to eight, also was 3 of 4 from the line in the fourth quarter including the final two points of the game with 20 seconds to go.

After her 10-point outburst in the first quarter, Washington was held to 13 points for the rest of the game in finishing with 23 points. She was held to one field goal in the final three quarters.

“We’ve gotten better all year,” MC coach Kayden Korst said. “We came into the year with very little experience. Jordan is incredible. Double teams didn’t work. Triple teams didn’t work, face guarding didn’t work, but we managed to score a couple more points (than Justin).”

As NCS finalists, MC and Justin advance to next week’s NorCal tournament.

“No idea where we’ll get (at NorCals), but we’re looking forward to whatever position we get.” Korst said.