Seeking the Winning Factor

Many things are factored into success, often unique to a team’s particular situation, its personnel, its coaching and its opponents.

Laguna Hills is no different.

The Hawk girls’ basketball team has a chance to become Orange County’s ninth consecutive state champion. This season, they are the county’s only hope.

They don’t have the tradition of past state champions or the catch-lightning-in-a-bottle whirlwind of a Cinderella team.

The Hawks do have a 6-foot-6 center who isn’t going to play basketball in college, Tayyiba Haneef. They have a point guard headed for the Pac-10, Tamara Inoue. They have an underrated forward, Whitney Houser. They have a defensive specialist, Mary Tims. They have a quiet and unassuming role player who won’t do anything to hurt the team, Erin Larsen.

“You look at their team and you say they’re an average team,” Woodbridge forward Krissy Duperron said. “But Inoue’s quicker than you can believe, Houser’s got an excellent shot and Mary Tims is quick on the wing. They have everything they need to win.”

And that’s without mentioning Haneef.

Here’s how Laguna Hills won 22 games in a row going into tonight’s state final:

The Fear Factor: Laguna Hills has no fear. Tims, whose nickname is Scary Mary for her defensive intensity, revealed as much after the Southern Regional semifinals when she said Brea had not played real basketball until it had played Laguna Hills. Brea had actually played one of the toughest schedules in the country.

But it was that fearlessness that gave Laguna Hills the opportunity to beat a team that, by all rights, should have won: Brea had more experience, better distribution of talent, more depth.

“Sometimes teams would lose to us before they even started playing,” Brea’s Marissa Bradley said. “[Laguna Hills] never believed they couldn’t run with us. They never believed they couldn’t beat us.”

And if the Hawks didn’t fear Brea--a five-time state champion that was making its ninth consecutive appearance in the regional final--then they certainly won’t fear today’s opponent, Newark Memorial (30-1), which is making its first state final appearance.

The Psyche Factor: The seed of fear becomes real when Haneef steps in to jump center, and it becomes a factor the first time she swats away a shot. She has high-jumped 5-10 (and will play volleyball and run track and field at Long Beach State). Her arms from shoulder to fingertip are three feet long and her arm span is 81 inches. She sets up in the middle of Laguna Hills’ 2-3 zone defense and takes roost. On offense, she’s happy to shoot from 12 feet in.

“You know you’re going up against a 6-6 player, plus her arms, and everyone who goes up against her is going, ‘Wow,’ ” Duperron said. “Once you get over the fear of Haneef, you have to deal with Whitney Houser and Tamara Inoue. There’s more than just Tayyiba in the middle. They’re extremely quick on the wings and they have quick hands.”

The Stars-are-Aligned Factor: Lynn Taylor calls it luck. He’s no different as a coach now than he was when he coached the team that was 6-16 five years ago, or was 11-12 four years ago. Now, he’s a genius.

“We happened to get the right combination of kids together,” he said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where everything comes together.”

Explained Bradley: “They have a decent point guard [Inoue], a decent shooter [Houser] and a 6-foot-6 force inside [Haneef].”

The Catching-a-Break Factor: Taylor has a theory that at some point in the playoffs, a team must get lucky. Laguna Hills got lucky in the Southern Section Division II-AA quarterfinals against El Dorado.

That was the night the Hawks couldn’t get any points from the perimeter and, with 52 seconds left in the third quarter, were tied, 39-39. But they scored six points before the quarter ended and won, 57-47. Haneef was 11 of 13 from the field and scored 25 points.

“You need one of those lucky games to get through the playoffs,” said Duperron, who has been involved in two state finals appearances and last year’s championship. “You need to be able to say, ‘Remember what happened against El Dorado?’ ”

Laguna Hills got another break in its 40-29 victory over Brea to reach the state title game; Brea made only 12 of 58 field goals, one of 23 from the three-point line.

The Competitive Equity Factor: The deeper into the season the Hawks went, the more people began to realize that Laguna Hills was more than the Tamara & Tayyiba Show.

Houser was the force that really put Laguna Hills over the top. A lot of teams might have two very good players, but special teams have three or four. And Houser fits into that category. She has consistently made the key baskets the past two years; she’s shooting 50.2% from the field and averaging 12.6 points.

Anyone who looked at Tims’ points throughout the season noticed a trend. Tims doesn’t score many points, but it always seems to be two or three huge baskets in the third quarter to spark a run or bury an opponent.

“[Offensively], you have to be aware of all of them, like Brea,” Duperron said. “Any of them could have a big game.”

The Underdog Factor: Although ranked second in the county at the beginning of the season, Laguna Hills was in the shadow of top-ranked Brea Olinda (which was ranked No. 1 in the state). And when it played Woodbridge (three times) and Mater Dei early, the Hawks still had to prove they belonged among the elite.

Taylor said that when Laguna Hills was dropped to No. 2 after being ranked No. 1 in Orange County for a few weeks (although the team had not lost), it took some of the pressure of being No. 1 off them. And put it back on Brea.

And when Laguna Hills finally played Brea, the Hawks had something to prove.

Against Newark Memorial, Laguna Hills finds itself the favorite.

The Mike Tyson Factor: Teams adjust to Laguna Hills, not the other way around. They adjust the way they dribble, or the way they shoot, or the arc of their ball, or where they shoot from.

“They’re deceptive because they don’t need a lot of points to win,” Duperron said. “They beat everybody, 55-40. That doesn’t typically get anyone’s attention.”

So an altered shot here and there, an opponent scores 10 fewer points than normal, and that’s all it takes. No team has scored more than 50 this season against the Hawks.

“Everyone knows this is the last chance Laguna Hills will ever have to go this far,” Inoue said. “Well, maybe 10 or 20 years from now. But I think this is a high point for us and the school.”