Laguna Hills Makes Most of Opportunity

On a night during which Laguna Hills played in streaks and seemed to get all or nothing, it finally got all it ever wanted.

The top-seeded Hawks, in the Southern Section finals for the first time, won the Division II-AA title Saturday at the Pyramid with a 54-40 victory over Cerritos Gahr, a wild-card team that couldn’t match Laguna Hills’ second-half determination.

It was a momentous occasion for four senior starters, close-knit friends who do almost everything together. When Tayyiba Haneef and Tamara Inoue started on the varsity as freshmen, playing alongside Mary Tims, they were 11-12. The following season, another classmate, Whitney Houser, joined the varsity along with a freshman, Erin Larsen. They went 17-8.

Last year, a 24-3 season ended in a triple-overtime loss in the semifinals. There was no such late-season disappointment Saturday. Haneef, Inoue and teammates are 27-3 and ranked second in the state behind Brea Olinda.

In the first quarter against Gahr, Laguna Hills looked like it should be No. 1. The Hawks made seven of 15 shots. They played great defense. They did everything right. It might have been their best eight minutes of the season.

They followed it with their worst.

A 16-8 lead turned into a 21-19 deficit after the Hawks went 0 for 12 from the field.

“I told the girls, basically, we’ve killed 16 minutes,” Laguna Hills Coach Lynn Taylor said of his halftime speech.

“He said, ‘If you want this bad enough, take it,’ ” Inoue recalled. “And we took it.”

The team that has been through thick and thin together shot 54.2% in the second half. After her team had missed 13 consecutive shots, Inoue (10 points, eight assists, four steals) sparked the decisive third-quarter effort with an 18-footer from the top of the key.

Houser, who had missed six in a row, buried consecutive six-footers from the baseline. Inoue followed with a pull-up jumper from eight feet. The confidence was back. The rout was on.

“The first five possessions, we threw the ball away and never got a shot,” Gahr Coach Tom Pryor said. “A lot was attributed to [Laguna Hills’] defense. But that was the decisive [run] in the game.”

By the time Gahr made its first field goal--with 56 seconds left in the third quarter, Laguna Hills had outscored the Gladiators, 18-1.

Laguna Hills had followed its 0-for-12 shooting performance with a 9-for-14 effort. The lead was 39-24 going into the fourth quarter and eventually reached 20 points.

“In the second quarter, I think everyone thought we had it,” Inoue said. “We gave up a little on defense.”

Tayyiba Haneef (17 points, nine rebounds) didn’t give up much on defense. She had seven blocks.

Inoue, who slowed down the game in the second half and enabled Laguna Hills to reestablish itself offensively, said the feeling was among the greatest of her life--the best since Laguna Hills won its first Pacific Coast League title in 1996.

Houser (12 points, 11 rebounds) and Taylor felt the same way.

“I have to tell you, I certainly didn’t think after the first two years we would be CIF champions,” Taylor said. “That realization, that we could get to that point, was last year. This is what athletics is all about--kids stay with you all four years, you work together as a coach and a team, you make up goals, then you realize them.

“I have to be honest. It’s almost like a dream. As coaches, we all say to ourselves, ‘One day, I want to win the big one.’ Well, we did. We won the big one.”