STATE REGIONAL TOURNAMENTS : New Queen of Morningside Basketball : High schools: Janet Davis, following in the footsteps of Lisa Leslie, is attempting to lead the Lady Monarchs to their fourth consecutive state championship.

In the 1989-90 season, Morningside High’s Lisa Leslie became the queen of the prep basketball world as she led the Lady Monarchs to their third consecutive State Division I title.

Leslie scored 101 points in a half, was named USA Today’s female prep basketball player of the year, dunked in a game, was the subject of an ABC television halftime segment, a two-page article in Sports Illustrated and numerous sports columns nationwide. Leslie graduated in May and now causes nightmares for USC opponents.

Meet the sequel.

Janet (pronounced Ja-NAY) Davis, a 6-foot-4 junior, is an inch shorter than her famous predecessor. She was an All-CIF forward as a sophomore. This season she has averaged 22 points and 11 rebounds while leading the 30-2 Lady Monarchs to their fourth consecutive Southern Section major division title.

Morningside plays host to Poway (27-1) of the San Diego Section in the State Division I regional semifinals tonight at 7:30.

Davis shared Ocean League most valuable player honors with Palos Verdes point guard Kristen Mulligan and has already received recruiting mail from USC, Nevada Las Vegas, Cal State Long Beach and Tennessee, among others.

One more thing . . .

“I can dunk at practices,” Davis, 16, said Tuesday before Morningside’s first-round regional playoff game against Los Angeles Roosevelt. “Now, if I get a breakaway, I’ll dunk. I dunk hard.”

Morningside Coach Ron Randle, co-coach of the Monarch boys’ team for six seasons, is in his first year coaching the Lady Monarchs. Out of all the eligible high school players in America, he says that Davis is the player he would want to build a program around.

“Athletically, Janet is just as good, if not better than Lisa,” Randle, 35, said. “She’s been blessed with a very good touch from 17 feet and in. At this point, in a lot of areas she’s better than Lisa was. But there are certain personal characteristics that separate the superstar from really good players. Magic Johnson has them and Lisa Leslie has them. Janet is working to develop them.

“She’s not alone in that,” Randle said.

Davis and Leslie were teammates on last season’s Morningside squad. They still talk a lot, and Leslie has been back to help Davis work on her game.

“I think that this year was my time to take over,” Davis said. “I knew that Lisa was not going to be here forever, so I try to be prepared to help the team.”

Davis, who became interested in basketball in the sixth grade, plays pick-up games with neighborhood boys and works on her post moves against players from the boys’ team. She has also had to get used to a new coach.

“Coach Randle is more into the game,” Davis said. “Coach (Frank) Scott was always friendly, but Coach Randle always yells at us to make us play better. Sometimes, I’ll get down. But I’ll pull myself back into it.”

Said Randle: “It’s a different type of motivation. The psychology is different in girls’ basketball than it is in the boys’ game. With the boys, you can talk to them hard and get them to improve. With girls, you try to do the same thing, their game might suffer.

“There are different expectations on (Davis) now. We’ve put pressure on her to try to pick up the pieces and to improve herself mentally. She’s in the situation of becoming a leader. Not so much this year, but even more so next year. We’re trying to bring her along slowly and not put too many demands on her.”

Morningside loses eight players to graduation this year.

Despite suffering a hip injury in Morningside’s 65-58 victory over Roosevelt, Davis scored 12 points and helped key a 14-4 third-quarter run.

Davis’ game is not only limited to offense. Her eight blocks keyed Morningside’s 52-47 Southern Section Division I-AA title victory over Chino on Friday.

“I get into defense,” Davis said.

“She’s a competitor,” Randle said. “She has a competitive spirit. It comes out when she is on the basketball court. She comes out and does what she has to do to win.

“Our intent for Janet is for her to play as hard as she can. People can take her actions in different ways. But she wants everyone to play hard and be successful.”

Both of Morningside’s losses this season were against Ocean League rival Palos Verdes, which won two of three meetings. The teams shared the Ocean title after splitting their two league games. Palos Verdes beat Morningside, 65-52, Jan. 9 at home to snap the Lady Monarchs’ 87-game league winning streak. Morningside then snapped the Lady Sea Kings’ 52-game league streak Jan. 30 with a 56-50 victory at home. In December, Palos Verdes beat Morningside in a tournament game.

“I don’t know what happened in the (league) game we lost,” said Davis, who scored 22 points and was the only Lady Monarch to score in double figures. “That game, we did not try to play as a team and just tried too much individually. That did not work.

“It was hard playing Palos Verdes. Our competition level before them was low. But after we beat them, we can beat anybody.”