San Clemente Finds a Few, Proud Fans

Moments before San Clemente played Newhall Hart in the Southern Section Division I-A girls’ basketball championship game Saturday, senior guard Kim Buffum got a message from a fan.

“This guy with gold teeth, I don’t know his name, but he said, ‘You gotta make five three-pointers tonight,’” Buffum said. “And I said, ‘I’ll try.’ And sure enough, it happened.”

The guy with the gold teeth is Lance Cpl. Roosevelt Erving, a member of San Clemente’s biggest group of fans--the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton. Erving was rewarded when Buffum made five three-point baskets--three of them in the fourth quarter--to lift top-seeded San Clemente to a 67-60 victory over Hart, giving the Tritons their second consecutive section championship.

It also helped the Tritons to a No. 4 seeding in the Southern California Regional playoffs, which begin tonight for boys and girls with games from Fresno to San Diego. The Tritons play at Oceanside El Camino in the only girls’ matchup in Southern California between section champions.

“I feel really good because I knew we were going to have to be on the road,” said Coach Mary Mulligan, whose victory Saturday over Hart was her 301st at San Clemente. “Oceanside’s only 30 minutes away. We’ll get a good crowd there, and it’s next to Camp Pendleton.”

Oceanside and San Clemente are separated by Camp Pendleton, and several Marines have adopted San Clemente as their home team. Twenty to 30 Marines travel to the Tritons’ games--home and away--providing plenty of moral and vocal support.

One of the officers at Camp Pendleton is Gunnery Sgt. Dennis Housley, father of San Clemente senior Ashley Housley. Ashley plays basketball with some of the men on base, and her father invited members of his Headquarters Company 5th Marines to an early season game. Three or four Marines grew into 20-30, and it has become quite the social event.

“We had people showing up at our games just to see the Marines,” Mulligan said. “The first game they came to, they were really giving the referee a hard time and chanting ’10 seconds.’ I had to send my assistant down there to let them know there was no 10-second [half-court] rule in girls’ basketball.

“I think it’s really neat. We’ve never had something like that before.”

There has been a learning curve, though. When the Marines get rolling, sometimes they don’t know when to stop.

“They showed up one night at Dana Hills, which we beat fairly easily, and at a certain point, it’s not appropriate for them to be so involved in the game if the score’s not competitive,” Mulligan said. “But for the Troy game [a 66-62 victory] or a playoff game, it’s really fun to have them around.”

In San Clemente’s victory over Hart, 25 Marines who arrived by bus sat on the San Clemente side of the arena--directly behind the Hart bench.

“They’re boisterous,” Hart Coach Dave Munroe said. “They were loud, but that’s all in the spirit of the game.”

The atmosphere is evident on the floor.

“As a team, we get a little more rowdy during the games,” said Buffum, a senior. “It helps us get more pumped up during the game. Before they started coming, we would be composed, we would be excited, but we wouldn’t really celebrate. But now, we feed off their energy.”

Gunney Housley admits he is surprised at the enthusiasm his men have developed for the basketball team.

“A lot of these guys are at an age where they haven’t been out of high school for too long,” he said. “This is all too familiar to them back in their hometowns in Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois. It’s an opportunity to do something in their community without going 30 or 40 miles away.”

Before the playoffs, Mulligan joked, “If we make the state playoffs, the trip to Narbonne will be a lot more fun this year.”

San Clemente’s only chance to play City champion Narbonne a second year in a row will be if the teams meet in the regional finals on March 16 at the Long Beach Arena.

San Clemente (27-3), led by Buffum, 6-foot-3 sophomore Lindsey Pluimer, and junior guard Sara Brown, must first beat El Camino (20-9), which defeated Poway in the San Diego Section final, 48-29.

The second-round opponent will be either top-seeded Lynwood (29-0), the Southern Section Division I-AA champion, or with a major upset, Chatsworth (22-8), the City Section’s runner-up.

On the other side of the bracket, second-seeded Narbonne (25-3) is playing host to Hart (25-6) in the first round, and the winner of that game will play either third-seeded Long Beach Poly (32-1) or its first-round host, Central Section champion Fresno Clovis West (24-5).

Gunney Housley thinks an important bond has been established between the community and military, especially on the north end of the base, which is home to the infantrymen who often engage in the most serious Marine battles.

He thinks the Marines will follow the Tritons “long after my daughter and I move on,” and that the Marines will try to go as far as San Clemente does.

“We take it a little bit at a time,” Gunney Housley said of attending a potential second-round matchup Saturday at Lynwood. “We’re doing some field training this week, so we’ll have to see where we’re at training-wise.

“We’re pretty busy these days.”