Peninsula Girls’ Team: From Very Good to Very Average : Basketball: After State Division I championship and 33-0 season, the Panthers have been beset by injuries in struggling to a 5-6 start.

A year after winning a mythical national championship, the Peninsula High girls’ basketball team is trying to cope with an injury list reaching mythic proportions.

The Lady Panthers have lost two starters, point guard Jill Kennedy and forward Joanna Whitley, to injuries that will keep them out of the lineup indefinitely. The playing time of forward Mimi McKinney, Peninsula’s best player and only returning starter, has been limited because of a lingering foot injury. A fourth starter, forward Ashley Burt, is playing on a bad knee.

The injuries have contributed to a 5-6 start for Peninsula, which won the State Division I championship last season with a 33-0 record. Coach Wendell Yoshida hasn’t had a team start this poorly since he began his career at Palos Verdes High in the early 1980s. His last two teams were a combined 65-2.

“This is the first time I’ve seen this many injuries on one of my teams,” said Yoshida, who is in his 13th season at the school. “When four out of five starters are injured, and two are out completely, it’s going to be tough.

“Hopefully we’re mature enough to grow from all this. We can either fold up right now or we can see what we’re made of. Basically, I’m going to leave it up to the team. I’m going to challenge them.”

Part of the challenge was playing a demanding schedule last month that took Peninsula to competitive tournaments in Sacramento, Santa Barbara and San Diego. The team lost Kennedy and Whitley in back-to-back games at the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions during Christmas week.

Kennedy cracked a fibula in a collision with a Palmdale player Dec. 21. The next day against Thousand Oaks, Whitley tore knee cartilage. She has since undergone arthroscopic surgery and is not expected back until February, if at all.

“It’s really weird, because neither of us has ever had any serious injuries before,” said Kennedy, a senior who has signed a letter of intent with Pepperdine.

Yoshida said Kennedy and Whitley might be able to return this season, but he isn’t counting on it.

“I’m looking at the worst scenario, and that’s not having those two players for the rest of the year,” he said. “(Kennedy’s) future at Pepperdine is much more important than playing another half a year of high school basketball.”

Kennedy, though, is optimistic that she will be able to play again “in a week or two.” Her fracture is not in a weight-bearing bone, allowing the break to heal without a cast.

“I can feel it getting better,” she said. “Before, it hurt to walk, but now I’m running around a little bit. I’m anxious to get back.”

Said Yoshida: “When the pain goes away, she can play. The doctor made no time constraint.”

McKinney, a junior who is considered one of the most talented players in Southern California, might end up playing in pain the rest of the season.

She suffers from plantar fasciitis, an inflammation of the ligaments and tendons in the arch of the foot. The condition, which afflicts people with flat feet, was caused last fall when McKinney had her foot stepped on in practice.

Yoshida is familiar with McKinney’s injury because he recently began suffering from the same problem.

“It hurts like hell just to stand up,” Yoshida said.

The condition limits the amount of time McKinney can play in one stretch. But despite frequent benchings, she leads Peninsula in scoring, averaging 20 points a game.

“I don’t know if (the pain) will go away until she stops playing for a while,” Yoshida said. “It probably won’t get any better until she gets complete rest.”

Burt, one of Peninsula’s three senior starters along with Kennedy and Whitley, has managed to stay in the lineup despite re-injuring her knee in the second game of the season. She had reconstructive surgery on the knee several years ago and wears a brace when playing basketball.

The injuries have forced Yoshida to experiment with several different lineups, most featuring underclassmen.

“I’ve probably had 10 different starting lineups,” he said. “I think the highlight of the season has been that the production of the underclass players has been very, very good.”

Peninsula’s injuries have increased the playing time of juniors Kirsten Pepys and Kim Fitzpatrick, sophomore Alison Fortner, and freshmen Karen Hartman and Erin Ratner.

“It’s been tough on the younger players because I still demand a lot from them,” Yoshida said. “It doesn’t matter what grade you’re in. If you play for Peninsula, you go out and play hard.”

But you don’t always win. Peninsula lost two of three games last week in the Surf and Slam tournament at Mission Bay High in San Diego. Lakeridge of Oregon, featuring 6-foot-7 junior center Shandra Benton, beat the Lady Panthers, 75-43, the worst defeat suffered by a Yoshida-coached team in several years.

“Our record isn’t sparkling, but we’ve played some good people,” Yoshida said.

Many think that Peninsula’s record will improve now that it is playing South Bay competition. Yoshida’s teams are 62-2 in league play over the last six seasons. The Lady Panthers defeated South Torrance, 43-31, Tuesday night in their first game against an area opponent.

“We could really do well if everybody comes back,” Kennedy said. “But you can’t guarantee something like that.”