Townsend Is Woodbridge’s Answer Man : His Play Is Vital to the Warriors’ State Title Hopes

Sometime on Saturday, perhaps on the flight to Oakland or at the team hotel, Woodbridge High School songleader Andrea Hayden finally will get a straight answer from her boyfriend, David Townsend.

Townsend, a starting guard on the Warriors’ basketball team, has been pestered by Hayden all week. She wants to know how the Warriors will fare in the state Division II boys’ championship against Richmond De Anza.

By now, Townsend has become accustomed to his girlfriend’s questions.

“Ever since the playoffs started, she comes up to me and asks, ‘How are you going to do?’ “Townsend said. “I keep telling her, ‘I don’t know.’

“Finally, on the day of the game, Andrea will ask me, ‘How are you going to do?’ and I’ll tell her, ‘We’re going to win.’ So far, we’ve won every game.”

The Warriors (27-5) have won 17 straight games and conclude their season at 4:30 p.m. Saturday against De Anza (31-3) in the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum Arena.

How is Woodbridge going to do against De Anza?

“We’re going to win,” Townsend said.

Lofty expectations? Not really. Woodbridge entered the 1986-87 season as the favorite to win the Southern Section’s 2-A division. Most teams set a goal to win a league title, but the Warriors were aiming for something bigger.

“One day in practice, Coach (Bill) Shannon got upset with the way the team was working,” Townsend said. “He stopped everything and told us, ‘We’re not practicing to win the Pacific Coast League, we’re practicing to win the CIF.”

Shannon was right. The Warriors won the Southern Section 2-A title, but had to go into overtime to beat Banning, 68-60. Townsend played an instrumental role in the victory, making a 16-foot jump shot and four free throws in overtime.

Townsend had one of his best games of the season in the Southern California regional championship game against Saugus last Saturday. He helped the Warriors open a 13-point lead in the first half with his outside shooting and finished with 16 points and 6 assists. The Warriors won, 65-53.

Afterward, the senior point guard was presented with the championship plaque. He held the plaque high over his head and marched up to the student section, sharing the moment with fellow students.

“There’s no better feeling in the world,” Townsend said. “The sound from our fans crashing down on me while I held up that plaque was incredible. I’ve played sports all my life and nothing can compare to the feeling I had when I held up that plaque in front of our fans.”

Townsend and teammate Vince Bryan had been waiting for an opportunity to play a championship game in the Sports Arena for three years. The duo have bought tickets to watch perennial power Mater Dei play in the Southern Section’s 5-A title game for three straight seasons.

“I told Vince we could be playing there this season, that we weren’t going to be buying tickets for the championships,” Townsend said. “When we got there this year, I reminded Vince of how we had to pay to get in, and that now we had finally made it we weren’t going to lose.”

The Southern Section and Southern California regional titles have given Woodbridge, a 7-year-old school, a lot of recognition. The team’s success has suddenly made the players recognizable figures in the community.

“I was wearing my letterman’s jacket in the supermarket this week and people I didn’t even know were telling me, ‘Way to go’ or ‘Good luck in Oakland,’ ” Townsend said. “The game in Oakland is the highlight of my life. This is prime time.”

Townsend’s sudden success in basketball also has offered a new option to his future in college. He has an offer for a football scholarship at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. UC Davis is interested in his basketball talents.

“My future is up in the air,” Townsend said. “I had hoped to make a decision by now, but basketball has prolonged that decision. Of course, it’s also given me another option.”

Townsend has maintained a 3.4 grade-point average in college preparatory courses. He plans to study biology in college as a premedical student.

His father, Jim, was a starting guard at Florida Southern and coached most of David’s youth sports teams. His mother, Betty, is a kindergarten teacher at Culverdale Elementary School in Irvine.

“I got into sports because of my father, and my mother was the one who stressed the academics,” Townsend said.

Townsend was one of the top athletes at Venado Junior High in Irvine. He started playing organized basketball in the fourth grade and Junior All-American football in the seventh grade.

He gained 702 yards in 153 carries and caught 23 passes for 279 yards for the Warriors’ football team last fall despite suffering a pulled left Achilles’ tendon in his fourth game that plagued him throughout the season. He was a second-team selection on The Times’ all-Orange County team as a linebacker.

Many scouts and college assistants consider Townsend to be a football player. They dismiss his basketball talents, often saying that he’s a good athlete filling out the starting five.

“That’s a fallacy,” said Shannon. “David has played on Slam N Jam teams with some of the best players in Southern California and held his own. I get tired of hearing that he’s a football player.”

By now, most should realize that Townsend is a good basketball player.

Football players generally don’t qualify for the state championship game.