Cajon Players Look to Honoring McKee

The death of assistant coach Dennis McKee has made this a very different girls’ basketball season at San Bernardino Cajon.

“The girls decided to dedicate the season to him, and they weren’t going to lose a game in honor of him,” said Coach Mark Lehman, whose 53-year-old assistant died Dec. 7 after earlier suffering a heart attack.

“We were coming back on the bus to take him the [Santa Monica Crossroads tournament] championship trophy at the hospital when we found out he had passed away,” Lehman said.

Cajon remained unbeaten longer than any large-school team in the Southland, but last week the Cowboys’ 21-game win streak ended with a 49-40 loss to San Bernardino in a San Andreas League game.

McKee’s daughter, junior guard Tameka McKee, is a reserve player on the varsity.

“I feel like we let him down,” said Cajon’s only senior starter, Jessica Fisiikava. “We got knocked down, but it doesn’t mean we can’t get back up.”

Cajon had no problem rebounding against Colton, winning, 93-30, as Fisiikava scored a school-record 41 points, including 11 three-point field goals in the first half.

Despite the loss, Cajon (22-1, 8-1) is still in position to win its first league title since 1990. Everyone else in league has at least two losses.

Now that their streak is over, the players have a new perspective.

“We shouldn’t have come out to stay unbeaten; we should have come out to win,” said Fisiikava after scoring 16, five below her average, against San Bernardino. “Everyone was so focused on the winning streak.

“I guess there’s a sigh of relief now that there’s no more pressure to keep the streak alive, but I’m still upset that we lost.”

In addition to Fisiikava, the Cowboys are led by unrelated juniors Shannee Green, who averages 16.6 points, and Amber Green, who averages eight points and 6.5 assists.

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It seems no one ever expects Santa Margarita to win the Serra League, but for the third season in a row, the 13th-ranked Eagles (19-4) are unbeaten in a league that includes No. 14 Santa Ana Mater Dei (13-6) and No. 16 Fullerton Rosary (18-5).

The four-team league is rounded out by Lakewood St. Joseph. With such strong competition -- limited to six league games and two automatic qualifying berths for the playoffs -- there’s little margin for error.

“No one will believe in you unless you believe in yourself,” said Whitney Hollison, a 6-foot-3 junior averaging eight points, nine rebounds and seven blocks. “We feel it’s a bit of an advantage to be an underdog because we don’t have all the pressure on our shoulders, the expectations.”

This week marks the first time this season Santa Margarita has been ranked above both Mater Dei and Rosary. Coach Rich Schaaf believes the team’s personality is a major reason for its success. His players don’t seem to get caught up in the intensity that typically accompanies a game involving Rosary or Mater Dei.

“They don’t panic,” Schaaf said. “I think I get emotional enough for them.

“Our 10th, 11th, 12th players are emotional, which is great because they cheer from the bench, but the top seven or eight are thinkers. They don’t get rattled. Rosary and Mater Dei are such good defensive teams, if we didn’t think, we couldn’t hang with them.”

On Thursday, the host Monarchs took a 14-3 lead in front of a packed gym. Santa Margarita, which didn’t take its first lead until the first field goal of the fourth quarter, pulled out a 48-46 victory by scoring the last five points of the game -- four by senior point guard Julia Pederson, who finished with 21 points.

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The first time Long Beach Wilson played winless Compton, the Bruins won the Moore League game, 97-4. That was with a running clock throughout the fourth quarter. When the teams played again last week, Wilson Coach Paula Clear started her second unit.

They did not score in the first four minutes, but neither did Compton.

“There was never any doubt in my mind,” Clear said, “but I decided we needed to at least score.”

Wilson’s first unit, in the last four minutes of the first quarter, staked the Bruins to a 20-0 lead. They were ahead at halftime, 44-7, and Clear asked officials to use a running clock the entire second half. They did, and Wilson won, 69-9.

As for that first four minutes?

“To Compton’s credit,” Clear said, “they played hard and did a good job.”