HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL FINALS : Division I Boys : Santana Mission: Slow Morse Down

Ron Davis, the Morse High School basketball coach, hasn’t had a chance to watch Santana play this season. That’s fair, because Santana Coach John Bobof hasn’t seen Morse.

But it doesn’t matter, because when top-seeded Santana (24-2) and seventh-seeded Morse (19-6) meet tonight at 8:30 in the San Diego Section Division I championship at the Sports Arena, there will be only one factor that both coaches will need to know about:

Speed.

It’s Morse’s prime weapon, and so far, it hasn’t failed the Tigers, the defending section 3-A champions, in postseason play.

Bobof’s task sounds simple--control the tempo and you most likely will control Morse.

“I figure they are going to be pretty quick,” Bobof said. “We are going to try to control the tempo and hope for a good job on the boards.”

Said Davis: “We are not going to change much at this point. We’ll do the same things that got us here.”

Which brings us back to speed. Willie Davis and Marcus Combs are the turbos behind Morse’s powerful, fast-breaking offense. In Morse’s 64-54 victory over Valhalla in Tuesday night’s semifinal, Davis and Combs combined on a fast break that left worn-out Valhalla players shaking their heads in awe.

Combs got the rebound and snapped a pass to Davis, who drove around two Valhalla defenders before whipping it back to Combs, who was trailing behind. Combs laid it in gently to end the play, which seemed to take only a couple of seconds to unfold.

“How do you stop athletes like that?” Valhalla Coach Manny Silva asked afterward.

Bobof is hoping to do stop them with a patient offense. And if Santana can take control, the Sultans can perform a little magic of their own with the outside shooting of Joe Church and Stu Back. Both are top-notch perimeter shooters with the ability to drive inside.

“I have heard a great deal about their outside game,” Davis said. “I have to assume that they have an equally good inside game or they wouldn’t have gotten this far.”

In fact, Santana has a fast break of its own, a controlled one. Sultan guard Matt Panebianco thinks that Santana can run with the Tigers.

In Santana’s loss this season to Lincoln, another team known for its speed, the Sultans were out-rebounded and out of breath by the fourth period.

“We let them get second and third shots,” Panebianco said. “We did well until the fourth quarter, then they just ran us to death. We just got tired. But I don’t think we will slow it down against Morse. We will keep on pushing the ball and run our controlled fast break.

“But to a certain extent, if we are running with them and we get out of control, which we have a tendency to do at times, it could be a field day for (Morse).”

That’s what Davis is banking on. It seems Morse has had quite a few field days in the past couple of weeks against teams too taxed to keep up.

It has been quite a turnaround for Morse, which finished the regular season at 16-9 and struggling for a third-place finish in the City Eastern League. Even Davis had doubts about his young team that returned only two seniors--Willie Davis and Combs.

“I am surprised that we got this far, to tell you the truth,” Ron Davis said. “I knew they had the talent, but I thought it would take some time for them to come together.”