Youngsters Rise to the Occasion : Faith Baptist: Unseeded bunch grow up together after dismissal of senior star and are now playing for a championship.

Alex Estrada was but a wee bun, fresh from the oven, when his father tagged him with a nickname that, with a few modifications, has stuck for each of Alex’s 15 years.

Although there is nothing wrong with a name like Alex, the Faith Baptist High point guard answers to “Loafie.” His friends, being of the age where any shortcut is sought, usually call him “Loaf.” Hardly an ideal tag for a cat-quick play-making guard, who frequently go by Jet, Doc or Magic.

“It’s from my dad,” explained Estrada, a 5-foot-8 sophomore. “When I was real small, he said I looked like a loaf of bread.”

At first, Estrada said he was called “Leloaf,” after a particular brand of bread that was popular in Milwaukee, his birthplace.

But what’s in a name? The team nickname at Faith Baptist, the Contenders, hardly sends a bolt of fear up the spinal cord. It sounds like the name of a team that finished one rung ahead of the Also-Rans.

Tonight at Biola University in La Mirada, however, Estrada and his teammates have the opportunity to prove that monikers are meaningless. The Contenders will play Brethren for the Southern Section 1-A Division championship at 7:30.

But this has become old territory by now. Faith Baptist (18-10) has spent the entire season trying to disprove the notion that it was too young, too inexperienced to make a run at the championship. And that was before the team lost its best player.

Twelve games into the season, senior center Dionicio Blanco was expelled from school for disciplinary reasons. Blanco was averaging a team-high 21.8 points and 11.4 rebounds a game. He was one of two seniors on a team that included nine players who were not on the varsity in 1988-89 when the team advanced to the quarterfinals and finished 19-6. No Faith Baptist team had gone further.

Peter Rasmussen, a 6-6 sophomore, replaced Blanco, giving the Contenders a starting lineup that included three sophomores, a junior and a senior. When Coach Stuart Mason talked of team goals, he used dozens of qualifying terms, such as perhaps, maybe and possibly . And now, without Blanco?

Obviously, the loss of Blanco, the team tornado, was a major turning point. But nose-dive turned to nosebleed as the unseeded Contenders--who entered the playoffs as the third-place team from the Delphic League--have rolled to consecutive upsets of Cate, Flintridge Prep, second-seeded Montclair Prep and Brentwood.

“When we lost our big-point man, Dionicio, I think that helped us,” said the bubbly Estrada, who is averaging a team-high 18 points, 7.5 assists and 3.7 steals. “We started playing together as a team. We knew we had the talent and ability.”

Indeed, Blanco’s exodus may have inadvertently led to a more cohesive unit. Once Rasmussen was inserted into the lineup with fellow sophomores Estrada and Darren Wyre--Fernando Garcia, a junior, is the other starting underclassman--something happened.

“The four underclassmen we have starting on the varsity now have been playing together for about five years,” Mason said. “So they’ve been in this type of position through the different levels at Faith. I think that’s the reason they’ve been able to handle the pressure.”

The sophomores played on a junior varsity team that finished 17-3 last season. With the school’s seventh- and eight-grade teams, the trio were unbeaten in basketball and football, Mason said.

Familiarity has bred success.

“We’d mostly go to him for the scoring,” Wyre said, referring to Blanco. “His defense hurt us a lot, and Peter plays great defense.

“And we know Peter. It was hard to tell what (Blanco) was going to do. We just gave him the ball and let him go.”

Each sophomore has let go--in his own way.

The lanky Rasmussen was unstoppable in Faith Baptist’s first three playoff games. He made nine of 11 shots from the field against Cate, eight of eight against Flintridge Prep and six of seven against Montclair Prep.

“Peter has been working very hard,” Mason said. “He’s been shooting 300 shots a day. His folks bring him in here on weekends.”

Yes, they have keys to the gym. Rasmussen’s father, Roland, is the school pastor and director. His mother, Margaret, is the principal. Which, of course, means they were ultimately responsible for the team turnaround when they expelled Blanco. Talk about your big assists.

In the process, their son moved into the starting lineup.

Rasmussen has more than justified his presence, averaging 14.5 points in the playoffs, but his sophomore mates have carried a proportional amount of the load too. Wyre, a 5-10 off-guard, averaged 12.7 points in the regular season and six in the playoffs.

Estrada is averaging 23.8 points in the playoffs and choreographed Faith Baptist’s 51-50 win over Brentwood in the semifinals last Friday. After his frigid start, however, his dad could have called him Doughnut.

Estrada went zero for eight from the floor in the first half. After intermission, however, he made eight of 11 from the field and finished with 19 points, including the game-winning jump shot from 10 feet with six seconds left.

“It just started falling for me,” Estrada said with a shrug.

Not bad, considering that when he made the winning basket, he had been on the floor for every tick of the previous 31 minutes 54 seconds. Then again, Mason has not removed a single starter in the last two games.

“I figure that you sub when you get a nice lead, when you have an injury or when you have foul trouble,” Mason said. “We didn’t have any of those.”

They don’t have a deep bench, either, which leads to a lot of deep breaths by the starting five.

“I get sick after the game from it,” Estrada said. “My stomach gets real sore, I get bad cramps.”

The cure?

“Sleep, you gotta sleep,” Estrada said. “Just wait until morning, when it’s finally gone.”

Estrada must have been comatose after the Brentwood game. Faith Baptist trailed, 18-4, in the first quarter as Brentwood knocked down four three-point baskets over the Contenders’ 2-3 zone defense. Faith Baptist played the remaining three quarters in a man-to-man defense.

“That was the best man defense I’ve seen a high school team play at this level,” Mason said, beaming.

In his fifth year at Faith Baptist, Mason, 27, first co-coached the varsity in 1985, but his tenure lasted only two seasons. Mason admitted that he needed seasoning.

“I was young,” Mason said. “I’m still young, but I was only 23 then. Our pastor felt--well, he asked me if I’d be willing to step down and learn for a couple of years.”

Dean Lobdell took over the team for two seasons, twice leading the Contenders into the playoffs. The two switched positions this season--Lobdell is now coaching the junior varsity.

“He’s been great about it,” Mason said. “There’s no room for egos if you want to win.”

The heads of the players, considering the heady altitudes to which the team has climbed, seem to have remained in the normal cranial range, too.

“I think it’s come as a big surprise,” Mason said. “They’ve won together for a number of years, but to win at this level, well, most people didn’t think we’d be here--myself included. I don’t think we have any egos around here.”

But if Faith Baptist wins, will the sophomores’ egos inflate a couple of years down the road, when they become seniors? Will Estrada’s father start calling him Yeast?

“I tell you what,” said Mason as he pointed to a Southern Section eight-man football championship banner on Faith Baptist’s gym wall. “If we have two of those hanging up there, they’ll have reason to be (cocky).”