Morningside Cruises to Easy Victory

It appears the Morningside High girls’ basketball team will have to wait until the CIF-Southern Section I-AA semifinals to be tested. The Lady Monarchs were never challenged Saturday night in a 102-40 quarterfinal victory over Long Beach Millikan.

The Lady Monarchs (27-2), going for their four consecutive Southern Section major division title and third consecutive state title, will play Lynwood, a 63-48 winner over Channel Islands. That game will be on Wednesday night at a site to be determined.

Millikan (17-10) played aggressive defense, but could not stop the front line of Janet Davis, Akiba Flanagan, and Tina Thompson, who combined for 52 points in three quarters.

Davis, a junior All-CIF player, finished with 18 points, 21 rebounds and eight blocked shots.

“That was power basketball, Morningside basketball,” Coach Ron Randle said. “We can shoot it from the outside, but why shoot from outside when you can shot from up close?”

All but one Morningside field goal in the first half came from inside the key, as it raced to a 51-18 lead.

The game was close for only two minutes. Millikan had to play much of the first quarter without Taniko Hilbert, its best player. It pulled to within a point, 6-5, but Morningside went on a 24-4 run for the rest of quarter to lead, 30-9.

“Millikan was a good team,” Randle said. “They played hard. But all I heard about was No. 32 (Hilbert) and when I saw she wasn’t starting, I knew they were in for a long night.”