Poway’s Secret Beneath Surface

Allison Brady, Stephanie Guerena, Wendi Swinehart and Cynde Gruchala were complaining to each other one day about the see-through white uniforms that Poway has to wear for its home basketball games.

“Everyone has to wear white underwear,” said Brady, the team captain. “Even if you wear peach underwear, you can see it. So we decided that if people are going to see our underwear, we might as well have them see something worthwhile. We decided that we should put ‘Beat MC’ on our underwear, then we’ll bend over and show the crowd.”

The night before Poway (26-1) played Mt. Carmel the second time this season--Poway lost the first meeting--the Titan girls brought their paints and their underwear to a team gathering.

The next night, “Level the Mount,” “PHS is No. 1” and “Can’t touch this” were painted across bottoms. Poway defeated Mt. Carmel, 52-34. The Titans are undefeated in three games against Mt. Carmel in their “special” underwear, including Saturday’s Division I championship victory.

“It shows that we wanted it all the way down to our underwear,” Brady said. “But we only wear the underwear against Mt. Carmel. We don’t want to use up the power.”

Trivia time: Since 1988, when the San Diego Section went to the five-division format, how many boys’ and girls’ basketball championship games have been decided by three points or less?

Add superstition: Poway wears its underwear against Mt. Carmel, but wears a ring for everyone else. Swinehart got a piece of cheap--yet powerful--jewelry out of a quarter vending machine. The ring had a devil’s head on it and it seemed like it was perfect for the Sundevils.

On the third meeting of the year between Poway and Mt. Carmel, the Titans began a game-day ritual: each team member wears the ring for one hour and Coach Jay Trousdale wears it during the game. It eventually broke, but Swinehart got another ring, this time with a skull on it, to continue the ritual.

“It’s a junk ring,” Brady said, “but it has the power.”

In addition to wearing their underwear and the ring on the day of Saturday’s championship game, Poway watched the end of the movie “Hoosiers” before going to the Sports Arena.

Numbers update: Mt. Carmel’s Tracey Johnson finished her first varsity season with a 20-3 girls’ basketball record. Combined with her junior varsity record, she has a 61-8 record. Against Poway, the team that beat Mt. Carmel for the Division I title, Johnson is 2-8.

Spoils of victory: El Cajon Valley Coach Robert Holm was especially pleased that his team won the Division II girls’ basketball title with a 55-42 victory over Carlsbad.

Holm was informed Saturday that El Cajon Valley had a home game and Carlsbad had a road game against Central Section champion Reedley in the Southern California Championships.

“That’s how important that win was,” Holm said. “I’ve been to Reedley.”

Reedley is about 20 miles southeast of Fresno, or 250 miles from Carlsbad.

Coming up short: The most common expression heard Saturday at the Sports Arena was “Aaaiiiirrrr ball.” Heidi Holm thinks championship games would be much better if they weren’t in the Sports Arena. Her dad agrees, but wouldn’t change the way things are.

“(In a high school) or a college gym, I think the shooting would be better,” Robert Holm said. “There is a depth-perception problem there, especially when you don’t get a chance to practice, but I wouldn’t take (the Sports Arena) away from the kids. It’s something they really look forward to. It becomes a defensive game, but I wouldn’t trade it because it means so much for the kids.”

Look who’s laughing: It’s a funny quote now that San Pasqual has won the Division II boys’ basketball championship. When Coach Tom Buck got a look at the draw sheet for his team, he quipped, “I knew we shouldn’t have brought up that we lost to DeMatha by 41 points.”

The Eagles were the seventh seed in the 16-team tournament.

Black was back: Maybe it was just a bad fad that will go the way of tie-dye shirts, but black shoes crept onto county basketball courts this season. Hopefully, they’ll creep off next season.

Some outstanding individual talents were wearing them. So were entire teams.

“I hate it,” Fallbrook boys’ basketball Coach Russ Keith said. “I let the players decide what they want to wear. It looks OK if you’ve got black uniforms, but we’ve got red and white uniforms. We’ll have them one year and that’s it.

“They make you look shorter and slower. We (couldn’t) afford that.”

Rancho Buena Vista, which reached the section finals, also wore black. So did Kearny and University of San Diego high schools.

And an all-star team could have been made up of girls who stood out in black: Desiree Weimann (Santana, 21.4 p.p.g.), Vanessa Nygaard (Carlsbad, 16.9), Alicia Gerken (Vista, 16.3), Vicki de Jesus (Mt. Carmel, 13.6) and Cindy Rand (Vista, 12.5).

“I think they’re kind of intimidating,” Nygaard said. “I’d be scared if someone came up to me in black shoes.”

Trivia answer: San Pasqual’s 73-70 victory over El Camino was only the sixth close championship game out of 40 played since 1988. Four have been played by boys: Madison over Kearny (1988), 54-53; El Camino over University City (1990), 68-65; and Calipatria over Bishop’s (1988), 52-51. The two girls’ games that were close: La Jolla Country Day over Calvin Christian (1989), 49-47; and Mt. Carmel over Santana (1990), 56-55.