TWO WORDS

High school sports serve as a rite of passage for the athletes who play them, the students, friends and families that gather to watch them and the sportswriters who cut their professional teeth covering them.

High school football games in Los Angeles date to 1896, but it wasn’t until 1934 that the Los Angeles City Section was born.

The Southern Section was established in 1912 and held its first athletic competition in 1913.

This story is not an attempt to document the achievements of every outstanding athlete, coach and team that made a mark, for there are far too many to chronicle here.

Rather, it is a history lesson of sorts told by current and former Times staff writers who have written about Southland prep athletes. Most of the writers graduated from Los Angeles-area high schools. And while many have gone on to cover college and professional sports as beat writers or columnists, all maintain indelible images of the prep athletes they watched, covered and, in some instances, competed with and against on the playing field.

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It was in the Oakland Coliseum Arena interview room that the Brea Olinda girls’ basketball team fielded questions after its 54-44 victory over San Jose Archbishop Mitty in the 1994 girls’ basketball state final.

The Ladycats were unbeaten in 33 games that season, and as unproven as high school national rankings are, everyone there was acutely aware USA Today had Brea ranked No. 2 in the nation, behind Pickerington, Ohio.

Brea was led by an unflappable point guard, Nicole Erickson, who wasn’t the most physically gifted player ever produced in Orange County, but was possibly its best big-game player.

Brea went 130-5 during Erickson’s four seasons as a starter and won four state titles.

Erickson scored 16 points and had five steals and five assists that night. But stats didn’t matter with that team, which seemed less concerned about who got what and how many, and more concerned with the bottom line.

Brea’s victory, its 54th in a row, had been matter-of-fact. Its closest game that season was a nine-point victory, and it seemed winning the state title was anti-climactic if it meant finishing No. 2 nationally.

Then the mother of forward Lee Moulin walked into the room and said two words.

“Pickerington lost.”

Immediately, girls whose basketball made them act like businesswomen were girls again, bouncing off the walls and into each other, hugging, screaming and crying in unbridled joy.

Erickson, who told a reporter as a freshman that her team would be No. 1 nationally during her senior year, yelled out loud, “I told you all, I told you all,” then crumpled to the floor in tears.

At the highest level of high school competition, sports is often more job than play. Brea had set the highest goal possible, then reached it. It was nice to see these players finally breathe easy without the burden of having to win looming overhead.

For once, they could fully enjoy a victory.