His Scoring Gives Borella Reason to Smile : Prep basketball: Laguna Beach guard is averaging 30 points this season, including a 43-point game last week.

Josh Borella rarely smiles when he has a basketball in his hands. He’ll weave through opposing defenses wearing a blank stare, either looking for an open teammate or keeping his eyes on the front of the rim.

It’s not that he doesn’t like having the basketball. In fact, the Laguna Beach High School guard wouldn’t want it any other way.

“My coach (Bret Fleming) always asks me why I don’t smile more,” Borella said. “He says, ‘You have to make sure you’re having some fun out there.’

“But I get all my pleasure after the game, knowing that I’ve worked hard and played well. That’s when I start to smile. If things go bad, I just don’t smile as much.”

After rebounding from an off-season back injury and a disappointing loss in the Southern Section 2-A championship game last season, Borella finally has reason to smile. A 6-foot senior, he has averaged 35.5 points in his last six games, including a 43-point performance in a 77-63 victory over Costa Mesa last week.

Borella is averaging 30 points per game this season, second in Orange County behind Loara’s Tes Whitlock (35.9).

“It’s a bad scenario any time he touches the ball,” said Estancia Coach Tim O’Brien, who watched Borella score 25 against the Eagles last week. “We learned a lot from him.”

Fleming said Borella, who moved from point guard to shooting guard this season, is “a combination shooter and scorer.”

“He’s an excellent shooter,” Fleming said. “He has one of the best pull-up jumpers I’ve seen on a high school kid.”

Last summer, Borella didn’t feel like shooting a basketball. It hurt his back too much.

“It was a combination of playing volleyball and basketball,” said Borella, an outside hitter on the Artists’ volleyball team. “I was arching my back (when jumping to hit a volleyball) and I screwed up some muscles in my back.”

The injury kept him from competing in summer camps and tournaments, a crucial time for exposure to college recruiters. Instead, Borella underwent therapy with a Laguna Beach doctor four days a week. After three months of stretching and exercises, the pain was gone.

“I’m back to 100% now,” Borella said. “I’m ready to roll.”

Although he missed the summer camps, Borella still has a shot at playing college basketball. He said he has received letters from Division I schools Oregon and Idaho and several Division II schools.

He doesn’t know where he’ll play, but he knows what he wants to study. Borella, who has a 3.7 grade-point average, wants to major in sports medicine or physical therapy.

“The therapy with my back really got me interested in sports medicine,” Borella said. “I learned a lot about the body and the impact sports has on it.”

Borella almost always has an impact on a game’s outcome--the victories and the losses.

He averaged 36 points in the Artists’ four-game winning streak in early January.

But Borella said he’s quick to take the blame in a loss, as was the case in the section championship game against Santa Maria St. Joseph last season.

He scored 25 points, and his penetration caused big problems for St. Joseph’s tall lineup. But as well as he played early, he made some costly errors in the fourth quarter.

A 78% free-throw shooter, Borella made only two of five free throws in the final 1 minute 30 seconds. With Laguna Beach trailing, 70-68, with five seconds left, he drove the baseline and lost the ball out of bounds.

Borella didn’t make excuses after the game. He didn’t complain about being nervous in front of a large crowd at the Sports Arena. He didn’t theorize, as many other players might have, that the rims at the arena were tight, or that the backdrop behind the hoops was a distraction while shooting free throws.

“It was just a frustrating game,” he said.

Fleming said Borella’s attitude is one of his biggest strengths.

“He’s the type of kid that says, ‘Don’t give me a second chance at it or I’ll beat you,’ ” Fleming said. “Right after the game, he wanted to get right back up there and play.”

Borella wasn’t satisfied with his 25 points in a 70-67 loss to Estancia last week. Even though he scored 13 points in the fourth quarter to lead a Laguna Beach comeback, he was disappointed in his shooting early in the game, and the three free throws he missed in the fourth quarter.

The day after the game, Borella spent a half-hour after practice shooting free throws.

“I get a lot of credit when we win,” Borella said, “but I have to take the blame for the Estancia game. I was out of control in the first half and I put my head down.”

Borella has scored in double figures in every game this season. Only two teams have held him under 22 points--San Clemente (10) and Mater Dei (12).

“Against Mater Dei, he played about 17 minutes because of foul trouble,” Fleming said. “Reggie Geary was on him, but he still had 12 points in about 15 minutes. He got in foul trouble against San Clemente too.”

Chasing Borella around a basketball court isn’t a day at the beach, which is where he sometimes goes to play pickup games.

When Borella is not playing on Laguna Beach’s main courts, he plays one-on-one with his brother, Max, a sophomore on the Artists’ junior varsity. His dad, Pete, a former player at Bridgeport (Conn.) College, and mom, Ginger, sometimes join in for some two-on-two.

After his sophomore season, Borella took private lessons with Tom Marumoto, a basketball skills instructor in Corona del Mar.

“He’s the master,” Borella said. “He worked with me on my dribbling and my moves. He helped me a lot.”

The lessons prepared Borella for his junior season, when he was primarily a playmaker and three-point shooter. The Artists relied on the scoring of seniors Dain Blanton and John Trevino.

But with Trevino and Blanton graduated, Borella, the only returning starter, was left to pick up the scoring slack.

“I’ve had Josh for four years--on the freshman team, the junior varsity as a sophomore and with the varsity last year and this year,” Fleming said. “Last season, I told him he had to be the quarterback. I always told him he would get his chance to score, and that’s this year. He has the green light now.”

Borella said he’s comfortable in Fleming’s offense, which is designed to give him as many as six or seven options on some plays.

“I’ve been with Bret for a long time and I have to say he’s the best coach I’ve worked with,” Borella said. “We have a good team this year and hopefully we’ll get as far as we did last season.”

Except this time, Borella would rewrite the ending to the championship game.

Then, and only then, will he want to smile.

BORELLA’S SEASON

Opponent Points Fountain Valley 33 Corona del Mar 28 San Clemente 10 Brea-Olinda 44 St. Margaret’s 32 Bishop Diego 30 Mission Prep 26 Carpinteria 23 Mater Dei 12 Orange Lutheran 37 Fountain Valley 22 Saddleback 38 San Clemente 38 Saddleback 37 Moorpark 32 Estancia 25 Costa Mesa 43 Totals 510 Average 30.0