Girls’ Programs on Rise Facing a New Challenge : Century, Laguna Hills, Westminster Ready for Title Runs

The game is no longer a marathon, but a sprint. The only thing that matters in the playoffs is who can survive single-elimination.

It is a strange position to be in for three Orange County girls’ basketball teams that have finally won a marathon and now must negotiate a mad dash for a Southern Section division championship.

Century, Laguna Hills and Westminster won league titles for the first time in their programs’ histories. All set school records for victories, and all enter the playoffs with an advantage they never have had--confidence.

Three teams, three different paths to the title. In years past, they could largely be ignored.

Not anymore.

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Few programs have experienced the depths to which Westminster had plunged. Before the 1994-95 season, the Lions’ best effort was 12-12 in 1985. Then they fell into oblivion--1-99 the next five years.

Dick Katz changed that. A former boys’ coach at Westminster, Katz has slowly built a winner over five years, from 4-16 his first season--when the Lions were in the Sunset League--to 17-8 last year, when the Lions tied for second in the Golden West League.

Perhaps no program elicited more controversy this season than Westminster (21-4, 9-1 in league), which benefited from new statewide open enrollment policies and won a share (with Ocean View) of its first league title.

Three of Westminster’s five starters when the Lions open the Division I-A playoffs will have transferred to the school in the last two years--Tanzenika Holmes and Letty Gil, both from Santa Ana, and Lan Erickson, from Rancho Alamitos. Jennifer Gray, who arrived from Detroit, has been averaging nine points and six rebounds as a reserve.

Holmes, a powerfully built 5-foot-11 post player, and Gil, a guard, seemed the perfect complements for post player Kristin Schult and sharp-shooting Erin Moore.

Holmes’ presence as a rebounder and scorer created opportunities for Schult, a long-armed, 6-2 center with a sweet jump shot.

Schult, the top returning player, averaged 13.8 points and six rebounds.

Holmes also has benefited from having another offensive force on the team. She averaged 14 points and 8.2 rebounds.

And Gil (6.4 assists) did her part, breaking presses and distributing the ball.

Gray (6-0), a cousin of formerMater Dei standout Miles Simon, is similar to Holmes--very athletic and physical. But she has accepted her backup role.

A tainted title?

“I know the people will say our transfers have done it. And to a certain extent, for us to be where we’re at, they’re right,” Katz said. “But we were going to win this year anyway--we had a good group of kids back.”

He continued: “Gray was not a factor. There’s no doubt about the help Holmes and Gil have given this program. I think we would have been good without them, but not to this level. But that’s no different than [Rhonda] Gondringer or [Melody] Peterson going to Mater Dei, or Woodbridge, or other programs.”

Gondringer (from La Quinta) is in her second year at Mater Dei and Peterson (Monrovia) is in her third. Most of the county’s best programs have been strengthened by transfers.

This season, it was Westminster’s turn.

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During the last five seasons, while going 57-61 overall, Century always had one goal: make the playoffs. Which it did. But something different about this season made Coach Jeff Watts do a double-take and shift that annual focus.

Junior Allison Napier transferred to Century from Santa Ana Valley. A freshman, Aprile Powell, half-sister to sophomore Nikki Love, turned out to be a woman in girls’ sneakers. Napier (6 feet 2), Powell (6-2) and Love (6-3) combined to give the Centurions one of the county’s tallest front courts and offset the loss of point guard Yvette Martinez, whose season ended with a knee injury.

“Before this year,” Watts said, “we’ve had only one player taller than 5-9 in six years.”

Powell has averaged 17.2 points and 11.1 rebounds. Napier has averaged 12.1 points and 8.9 rebounds. Love averaged eight points and six rebounds before becoming academically ineligible. The team was dealt a blow Monday when it learned she would miss the Division I-A playoffs, the section’s toughest division.

Those players brought out the competitive nature of their teammates, who stepped up their level of play. Add another transfer from Santa Ana Valley, junior guard Debbi Arostigue (whose mother works at Century), and the Centurions had depth for the first time in the program’s history.

Just like that, Century became a contender in the Empire League. The new goal was to win the league title, which it shared with El Dorado.

The Centurions (21-3, 9-1) built a nice foundation for the next couple seasons:

* Century’s league title was the school’s first girls’ title in any sport.

* When the team played Thursday at El Dorado, it marked the first time the program used a rooters’ bus.

* The team shattered the school record for victories (14).

The Centurions did it by hustling back on defense and daring opponents to beat them from the outside. On offense, they jam it inside. And if they can’t jam it inside, they’re encouraged to fire away.

“It makes a big difference when you can take the outside shot knowing you have people underneath who can get a rebound and a put-back,” Watts said. “At least 40% of our points are on put-backs.”

No one expected Century to go 21-3. But Watts, the team’s only coach in its short history, has kept that in perspective too. Parents and teachers have asked him about not being ranked among the county’s top 10 despite such a record. (Century was ranked ninth on Dec. 19, but promptly lost.)

Watts told them Century wasn’t as good as those other teams and had an easier schedule--one that he hopes to upgrade next year to gain a little more credibility.

So, maybe by accident or fate, his team learned how to win. And for now, how to enjoy the moment.

“The way I’ve looked at it, there are seven or eight boys’ banners in our gym and our goal was to get a banner,” Watts said. “We achieved that. . . . And the girls will come in here and see that banner on the wall and know they were part of something special, the first girls’ championship in this school’s history.”

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Laguna Hills Coach Lynn Taylor recalls a story from this season: “We heard [an opposing player] said to one of our freshman kids, ‘If you didn’t play that [wimpy] zone, we’d beat the hell out of you.’ ”

And then Taylor breaks out laughing.

All teams should have such a wimpy defensive scheme. But that’s the way it has been for Laguna Hills, long dormant in the Pacific Coast League but suddenly its undisputed power and seeded third in Division II-A.

The Hawks are “sneaky good.”

“It’s hard for people to figure out why we’re winning games,” Taylor said. “We feel sometimes that teams are walking away scratching their heads.”

Some of the county’s best teams have walked away scratching their heads--Marina, Ocean View, Westminster.

And yet Laguna Hills does it without any stars. Tayyiba Haneef (11.1 points, 9.6 rebounds) gets noticed because she’s 6-6, the county’s tallest player. And word has gotten out that guard Tamara Inoue (12.8 points, 5.2 assists), able to break most presses, is one of the county’s most underrated players.

But Mary Tims--her teammates call her Scary Mary--plays defense like a longshoreman. Whitney Houser consistently picks up the garbage around the basket. And Marissa Trienen (7.3 rebounds), says Taylor, “is our steadiest kid [who] consistently comes down with the tough rebounds.”

“We certainly don’t have a great shooter on the team,” Taylor said. “We win because of our defense.

Haneef plays a major role because of her shot-blocking ability, which prevents most teams from driving against the Hawks. Because she guards the middle, her teammates can take more defensive chances on the outside. And no team has as many floor burns or plays harder over a 32-minute span than Haneef’s teammates.

“We feel that whenever we have everyone in the lineup,” Taylor said, “we play as well defensively as anyone in the county because we do go at it so hard.”

Taylor deserves some credit. With only one senior starter, Trienen, Taylor upgraded the schedule, even entering the tough Marina tournament, because he thought this team was going to be good. Not only did the Hawks have a great record (22-2), they gained credibility in the process.

They lost to Mater Dei by 14 points in the Marina tournament final after being outscored by 12 in the second quarter. The other loss was to Esperanza on a night that Haneef sat out with a sore knee.

Since the school opened in 1978, the Hawks have never been close to a league title. Last season, Laguna Hills went 17-8 with a modest 6-4 league record, and finished third--its best finish ever. Until now. The Hawks are 10-0.

And folks are left scratching their heads. Haneef, for example, didn’t score a point in a game against University, and Laguna Hills won in a rout. And if it’s not one of the unknown starters stepping up in the big game, it’s an unheralded bench player such as sophomore Erin Larsen.

“The kids are real good about accepting what happens,” Taylor said, “and as long as we win, they seem to be happy.”