Simi Valley’s 70-64 Win Answers Critics

Free throws--four each by Don MacLean and Butch Hawking in the final minute of overtime--did far more than win Simi Valley High a championship Saturday night.

The Pioneers, threatened with the tag of big-game failures, erased that potential legacy with their 70-64 win and first Southern Section 4-A Division title.

Until Saturday, Simi Valley’s biggest victory was against Capistrano Valley in the 1986 semifinals.

At the time, sophomoresMacLean and Shawn DeLaittre were on a Pioneer team that stunned the heavily favored Cougars. That 97-69 victory had stood for two seasons as a barometer that measured the success of Simi Valley’s program.

Simi Valley established a new yardstick Saturday in front of 10,944 at the Sports Arena.

“I feel relieved to get this off my back,” MacLean said. “It was tense. We had the talent and we wanted to do it so bad. I’m so relieved just to say we did it.”

The Pioneers won, just as they had 79 other times since the talented sophomores first took their skills from Simi Valley’s youth programs. But, until Saturday’s victory, their eight losses were more telling than their wins.

Of those eight, two came in the playoffs, five in prestigious national tournaments and the other to Camarillo in Simi Valley’s only league defeat in three years.

The losses are now all but forgotten.

“This was for all the critics who said we couldn’t win the big game,” said Butch Hawking, a two-year varsity player. “I can remember the feeling two years ago when a bunch of people were ready to stab us in the back. We’re over that now and we’ve got something nobody can ever take away from us.”

DeLaittre, who scored 15 points, was more relieved than elated when the overtime game had finally ended. The Pioneers made only 18 of their 56 field-goal attempts and were forced to win with free throws. Simi Valley made 30 of 36 at the line, including 14 of 16 by MacLean, who finished with 28 points, and 6 of 6 by Hawking, who had 18.

“It’s about time,” DeLaittre said while holding a game ball in one hand and his championship medal in the other. Confetti freckled his face and hair. “It took us three years, but I’m satisfied.”

The Pioneers lost the 1986 final to Muir after beating Capistrano Valley, and DeLaittre wanted nothing to do with that again.

“It feels a lot better,” he said. “A lot better. I remember I was so down and so depressed. I felt like something had gotten away from us.”

For those who were not completely satisfied with three Simi Valley tournament titles, three consecutive Marmonte League championships and 10 playoff victories, including that trip to the final, Coach Bob Hawking provided a final response.

“There are some cynics who want to ask, ‘When, when, when,’ ” he said. “I guess we answered them tonight.

“The kids on this team were a product of their own notoriety.”

And, perhaps, products of their own and others’ expectations.

But first, Simi Valley had to deal with a player from Capistrano Valley who has gained a little notoriety himself recently.

Cougar guard Todd Marinovich, the subject of a recent Sports Illustrated article that told of his football exploits and decision to attend USC, led his team with 20 points. He appeared to be the difference in the tight game until fouling out with 42 seconds left in regulation.

Marinovich played on a junior high all-star team with MacLean and Hawking. He remembered them well.

“They play the same now as they did then,” said Marinovich, who passed for 9,165 yards, a national career record, while at Capistrano Valley.

And, just as they did in that memorable upset in the 1986 semifinals, which, after Saturday, will be remembered as the start of something truly great.

It could have been the only very bright spot.