Taylor Guided Laguna Hills Into Spotlight

The scene was the Marina tournament championship game, and Laguna Hills had just beaten Ocean View in triple overtime.

Laguna Hills Coach Lynn Taylor was addressing the media.

He was honest, a man who knew he was on the precipice of something good, to be appreciated because it doesn’t come around all the time.

“This,” he said, “is all so new to us.”

Taylor was talking about playing in the big game, being in the limelight, the center of attention, of being a county power.

Laguna Hills did something most people wouldn’t have thought possible. It got noticed in the top-10 polls, by opposing coaches making plans for possible playoff opponents and by people who appreciated good girls’ basketball.

Without any true stars--his point guard was touted before the season as one of the county’s most underrated players--Taylor’s team got to the Southern Section Division II-A semifinals, where it finally lost to Ocean View--in triple-overtime.

The program had never gotten out of the first round in any previous season--on those rare occasions when it actually got into the playoffs.

For this, and a lot more, Taylor is The Times Orange County girls’ coach of the year.

Since Laguna Hills opened in 1978, the team’s best league finish had been third place.

But Taylor knew last year’s sophomore-laden 17-8 team with the modest 6-4 league record had a chance to be good in 1995-96.

So Taylor upped the ante.

He scheduled tougher nonleague opponents, such as Edison. He sought the best tournament he could find--Marina’s. He challenged his team to rise to the occasion, which it did.

In doing so, he brought credibility to the program--a trait that’s often harder to earn than something as simple as having a lot of victories when the season ends.

Point guard Tamara Inoue was instrumental in making sure the Hawks wouldn’t die at the hands of a pressure defense. The rest of the starters, Mary Sims, Whitney Houser, Marissa Treinen and Tayyiba Haneef, meshed like Cajun cooking and Tabasco; they played defense with as much spice as anyone in the county.

No team worked harder at attacking the ball. They led the county in scraped knees and played with an uncommon passion.

They beat Marina, Edison, Ocean View and Westminster. They finished the regular season 22-2, ranked fourth in Orange County. One loss was to a top-10 team, Esperanza, when Haneef--the 6-foot-6 anchor on defense--sat out because of a tender knee. The other loss, to Mater Dei in the Marina tournament championship, was by 14 points, 50-36, after being outscored by 12 in the second quarter. Mater Dei won a state title Saturday.

“We’ve never played at this level before,” Taylor said after the Mater Dei loss, “and you could tell we were nervous.”

They’ll get over it. Treinen is the only starter the Hawks are losing. Taylor has talked to Woodbridge about a “Super Saturday” nonleague game in January. He has called Las Vegas, hoping to get into a big-time national tournament.

He has followed the lead of Brea Olinda, Woodbridge and Mater Dei, which are not bad leads to follow.

The program has ascended steadily under Taylor, from 6-16 to 11-12 to 17-8 to 24-3.

“Not too many kids,” he said, “are interested in transferring to a school that’s 6-16.”

Laguna Hills finished 10-0 in the Pacific Coast League with only the neighborhood kids, who played defense by scratching, hustling and diving for every ball. No stars, no blue-chip players, no transfers.

“We certainly don’t have a great shooter,” Taylor said, yet four starters shot better than 43% from the field--mostly off offensive rebounds and transition baskets.

It’s a testimony to blue-collar basketball and hard work.