When Warmus Warms Up, Opponents Seem to Cool Down : Aztecs Find Correct Formula to Produce Promising 8-1 Start

If you have never seen a girls’ high school basketball team play, this year’s edition at Esperanza would certainly be a good place to start.

Although there are still many lopsided scores, girls’ high school basketball in Orange County has made great strides in the overall quality of play--and Esperanza is a good example. The game is much smoother than you might think, complete with cutters on offense, fast breaks, and reasonably sound defense.

And Esperanza embodies those attributes perhaps because the sum of the Aztecs are made up of the game’s five classic parts: a dominating center, a shooting guard, an off guard, a small forward and a power forward.

In order, their names are: Karen Davidson, Sharon Murrell, Laura Jones, Dana DeFilippo, and Sharon Warmus.

Davidson, a sophomore, might become the premier player in the county in two years--maybe sooner--if she progresses as well as she has. At 6-feet, Davidson is an excellent offensive rebounder, with many of her points coming off the boards.

Murrell can hit from the outside and Jones brings the ball up the court. DeFilippo might be the best shooter on the team--her jump shot will loosen up opponents’ zone defenses, taking pressure off Davidson in the middle.

Finally, there is Warmus, the Aztecs’ best player.

The Aztecs have rushed out to an 8-1 start and face one of their biggest challenges of the season at 5:30 p.m. today when they meet Franklin High School of Seattle in a quarterfinal game of the Marina-Edison Tournament.

Esperanza dumped Huntington Beach, 64-33, in a first round game Tuesday to reach today’s quarterfinal. Franklin beat Orange, 50-42, in the same bracket, setting up an interesting matchup between Warmus and the Quakers’ best, Shannon Smith. Street and Smith magazine named Smith a prep All-American in its preseason review.

Respected opponent or not, it isn’t likely that the Aztecs will be nervous going into this game, if only because they are a loosebunch.

Specifically, one minute they might be running a disciplined fast break and the next, two players are bouncing shots off the backboard to each other like volleyball, or maybe all five are careening out of bounds after the same loose ball.

In other words, they’re a fun bunch to watch because you never know what will happen next.

The head coach here is Marc Hill, who is also the school’s physics teacher, so he knows a thing or two about formulas for team chemistry:

A rebounding center + outside shooting + Warmus’ inside play and overall leadership = Empire League title and beyond. Right now Hill would like to add maybe two more parts Warmus to the team brew.

“We’d like to get Sharon to be a little more selfish,” Hill said. “Last season as a junior she averaged 15-16 points per game. This year, we’d like to see that up to about 18 points.”

Thanks to a couple of recent high scoring games, including 25 points against Huntington Beach, Warmus is now averaging 20 points, as well as 7 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals per game.

Although the team as a whole tends to play a little out of control now and again, Warmus picks and chooses her spots in a given game.

Many star basketball players will constantly be shaping the game to the tempo that they want, but here is where Warmus differs.

Warmus can make her presence felt anytime she chooses, but for the most part she lets the game (and trouble) come to her. She’ll fight fair and square for a rebound, but if you should jab her? Meet Warmus’ elbow right back in your ribs.

And in a recent victory over Los Alamitos, Warmus scored 10 of her team’s 17 first-quarter points, then was understandably quiet in the face of a double-team defense.

In the fourth quarter, with her team behind, 36-32, Warmus reappeared to lead a stifling fullcourt press, one that forced numerous turnovers by the Griffins and a subsequent win for the Aztecs.

At 5-11, Warmus is big enough to crash the boards with the best of them, yet she’s agile enough to bring the ball up the court against the press.

Warmus is one of those players who always seems to know where everybody else on the court is; often she’ll backpedal in the transition from offense to defense just so she can keep track of everybody.

Ask Warmus which she likes better--scoring or passing--and she doesn’t get a chance to answer. A good-natured chorus of “score!” comes from her teammates.

Warmus defers. “I like to pass it off to the others,” she said, “because I like to see their reaction when they score.”

Warmus isn’t being magnanimous. The girls are just as animated and can high-five with the best of the boys’ teams. Warmus also knows the joy of banking one home erself.

“My favorite is when you fake a shot, some 6-3 forward flies by you to block it, and then you go in for the easy basket,” she said, grinning.

If Warmus’ game seems the product of a fertile mind as much as an athlete’s prowess, perhaps that explains how she can take honors government and English classes, trigonometry and religion to go along with her coach’s physics class, all to hopefully prepare her for a career in nursing.

And that’s probably a good field to get into, considering how she feels after a particularly rough contest.

“People don’t think of girls’ basketball as physical,” Warmus said, “but it is. I have the bruises to prove it.”

It’s a safe bet that so do some of the players she goes up against, too. Esperanza is one of the best teams in the county because of it.