Brea Takes an Unusual Path, but It’s Still Business as Usual

A wad of chewing gum, a stack of dime-store sticker hearts and a trainer who can monitor the feelings of 15 teen-age girls.

Business as usual wasn’t necessarily the same ol’, same ol’ for the Brea-Olinda girls’ basketball team, although the end result was as predictable as a warm, sunny day in the Southland.

By the time Brea-Olinda left the Sports Arena floor Saturday afternoon, it did so as the Division II Southern California champion, a title the Ladycats have earned for a record fifth year in a row. Only Sacramento Grant has equaled the State appearance record, but Grant didn’t do it consecutively.

“It’s great. They all feel great,” Brea-Olinda Coach Mark Trakh said.

The top-seeded Ladycats nudged their way into the top of the record book with a 45-39 come-from-behind victory over third-seeded San Diego University City, in a game in which both teams’ featured players combined to score 17 points.

That’s where the chewing gum comes in. Trakh had impressed upon guard Susan Rhodabarger the importance of neutralizing University City’s Jenny Gross, who entered the game with a 15-point scoring average and finished with six.

“It’s like in the movie, ‘Hoosiers,’ ” Trakh said. “I told Susan I wanted to know what kind of gum she was chewing. She brought me over and said, ‘Trident.’ ”

University City Coach Steve Vukojevich didn’t care about gum, as long as those assigned to Brea-Olinda junior guard Nicole Erickson stuck to her like it. Guards Alicia Weihl and Julie Whittemore helped lower Erickson’s 22.2 scoring average by holding her to 11 points.

Commenting on the strategy to stop Gross, who was 1 of 13 from the field, including six air balls, Trakh said, “Cut off the head, the body’s going to to die.”

As long as the Ladycats were on their way to Oakland, where they will meet Fair Oaks Bella Vista--a 53-47 winner over Sacramento El Camino--in the State final Saturday, Erickson didn’t mind passing the scoring privileges onto junior forward Sarah Beckley, who scored 16 points and had 11 rebounds--both game highs--and played the game of her season.

Beckley is beginning to make this an annual event. In the 1992 regional final, Beckley had 20 points and eight rebounds against Rancho Alamitos. Beckley was especially effective in the second and third quarters, when she pulled down eight rebounds and scored 14 points.

What is it about the Sports Arena that brings out the best in Beckley?

“I don’t know. I guess I just like playing here,” she said.

Knowing a Brea-Olinda player had a tradition of playing well here--in a place University City (25-6) had never been before--stunned the Centurions.

Said Gross: “We heard them say, ‘Yeah, I play well here every year.’ We’re all, ‘What?’ ”

But University City wasn’t intimidated by Brea-Olinda, and proved as much by jumping to a 9-8 lead midway through the the first quarter, which it opened to 21-17 at the half and held until early in the third. Stymied by the Centurions’ unrelenting zone defense, the Ladycats’ went through an eight-minute scoring drought between the first and second quarters.

Trakh wouldn’t attribute his team’s 17-point first-half performance to nerves, or to underestimating their opponent or to playing poorly. Nope. It was all University City’s defense.

“Pure and simple, nothing else,” he said.

In the third quarter, Lee Moulin hit a long baseline jumper that gave the Ladycats a 23-22 lead, their first since the first quarter. The Centurions regained the lead when Gross scored her first points of the game--two free throws--but University City was beginning to tire, and Brea-Olinda was ready to go the distance. Beckley put her team in front for the remainder of the game on a layup off her own rebound at 4:15 in the third.

University City pulled to 42-39 on a pair of free throws by Gross with 1:46 left, but Brea-Olinda trainer Debbie Thompson had already predicted the outcome, based on her assessment of how the Ladycats were behaving.

“The trainer said they were ready,” Trakh said.

Besides, Vukojevich didn’t figure any lead against Brea-Olinda was safe.

“Good team regroup in the third quarter,” he said. “That’s a real great basketball team. I asked their coach before the game if they’d let us play with six.”

Hardly, but University City did play with the figure of a Centurion tattooed on their upper arms, which Brea-Olinda answered with little red hearts affixed to the front of their jerseys.

“We read about the tattoos,” Trakh said. “We countered with the hearts. We want people to know we’re a team with heart. . . . We read that Steve (Vukojevich) said we were an institution, a tradition. But institutions can be toppled and legends forgotten. The hearts are symbolic.”