SoCalHoops High School News

CIF State Finals Division III Girls Preview:
Harvard-Westlake v. Acalanes--(March 19, 1999)

CIF State Finals Girls State
Championship Game--Division III
12:45 p.m., Saturday, March 20 - Arco Arena
Sacramento California

Harvard-Westlake High will attempt to become the first girls' basketball team from the San Fernando Valley to win a state championship on Saturday when it plays Lafayette Acalanes for the Division III title at Arco Arena in Sacramento.  The state playoff format was adopted in 1981, two years after El Camino Real was named state team of the year by Cal-Hi Sports in 1979.  The Conquistadores won the City Section championship, which was played in the fall that year, then waited three months before capturing the eight-team Tournament of Champions at the Oakland Coliseum Arena to finish with a 19-0 record.  Lori Chandler, who coaches the El Camino Real girls, was a guard on that team.  Buena of Ventura is the only team from the region to win a state championship. The Bulldogs claimed titles in 1983 and '84.

Omelogo Udeze, at 6 feet 2, and Rolake Bamgbose, at 6-1, are the top players for Harvard-Westlake, coached by former ABA and NBA player Brian Taylor. Harvard-Westlake was the Southern Section III-A runner-up behind Inglewood Morningside and was the fifth-seeded team in the Southern California regional. The Wolverines defeated San Diego Kearny, Wasco and top-seeded Fullerton Rosary en route to the championship game.   The Wolverines are regarded as a favorite against Acalanes, which is in the final for the second time in three years. The Dons advanced with a 37-22 victory over top-seeded Loomis Del Oro despite going scoreless for 14:37, including the entire second quarter. Acalanes made only 14 of 30 free throws. Corrie Mizusawa of Acalanes, a junior, is averaging 14.4 points and is considered one of the best point guards in the East Bay area. She scored a career-high 33 points in the Dons' 48-38 victory over Arcata in the section championship.

Yesterday's LA Times had an intersting story on the Wolverine girls, and how difficult it is for them to get any attention.  Here's what we found: "Contrary to appearances, the FBI is not using the Harvard-Westlake High girls' basketball team in the Federal Witness Protection program.  But it wouldn't be a bad idea.  Only 573 attended the Wolverines' 72-50 victory over Fullerton Rosary on Saturday in the Southern Regional Division III final. The 9 a.m. Division V girls' game, featuring the smallest schools, attracted almost that many fans.  Harvard-Westlake, which arranged for rooter buses when the school's football team advanced to the Southern Section Division VII final, made no such plans for the regional basketball final.   "We don't get a lot of support from our school," senior guard Michelle Ghodsian said. "This [victory] was a statement that we should get more attention, that we deserve
it. This was history making."

Here are the rosters for the two teams:

Today's edition of the Times had two stories, one on the H-W girls and another on the Acalanes team.  Here they are

Here's Dave Desmond's report on the Acalanes team:

Two years ago, very little was expected from the girls' basketball program at Acalanes High in Lafayette.  After all, the team had not won a postseason game since 1977.  That all changed during the 1996-97 school year, when an uncommonly strong freshman class and a demanding first-year coach arrived at the school, located about 10 miles east of Oakland in a community of about 30,000.  Today, the school has a policy barring fans from celebrating on the court after big victories.   And there have been lots of big victories.  For the second time in three seasons, the Dons (29-4) will play for a state championship. They face Harvard-Westlake (29-5) for the Division III title on Saturday at 12:45 p.m. at Arco Arena in Sacramento.

Acalanes has won three consecutive North Coast Section division championships and compiled an 86-16 record in the three seasons since it hired away Casey Rush, formerly an assistant at rival Campolindo, a two-time state champion.  Last season, Acalanes defeated Rush's former school, ending Campolindo's 96-game Tri-County Athletic League winning streak, and the Dons have split the last six meetings with their longtime nemesis.   "There's a lot of pressure on us to succeed now," said Corrie
Mizusawa, a junior point guard and Acalanes' top scorer. "There are a lot of expectations from everywhere, beyond just our team. Our community and a lot of people even outside of our community expect a lot from us."  Juniors Mizusawa, Hilary Andersen and Lauren Murray, each 5 feet 8 inches, have started since they were freshmen and have been the
foundation of the program. 

"There's definitely a combination of two forces at work here," said Keith Schmidt, Acalanes' principal. "[Rush] and the three freshmen kind of revolutionized the game for us. They are the core who have helped us reach this point."  That revolution was built not only around a talented class of players, but also a rigorous conditioning program and a relentless full-court
pressure defense.

"I've got some good players, and their work ethic is unparalleled," Rush said. "No one is in better shape than we are, and nobody is going to outwork us."  Rachel Rosemeyer, a 5-10 senior transfer from Campolindo, and Lisa Ovadia, a 5-7 junior guard, complete a lineup that will have a considerable size disadvantage against a Harvard-Westlake lineup
that includes 6-2 post players Omelogo Udeze and Rolake Bamgbose and 6-foot swing player L'Tanya Robnett.
But Acalanes has beaten taller teams before.  "How do we make up for that?" Rush asked. "We pick 'em up [defensively] the minute they get off the bus."

Last week, in the Northern Regional final, the Dons limited top-seeded Loomis Del Oro, a significantly taller team, to two-of-20 shooting in the second half and claimed a 37-22 victory.  "Defense is always what wins games for us," Mizusawa said. "We
never lose sight of that."  The Dons reached a state final in 1997, Rush's first season, but lost to Torrance Bishop Montgomery.
Last season, Acalanes was ranked No. 1 in the state before being upset by No. 8-seeded Sacred Heart Cathedral in overtime in the first round of the Northern Regional.   "I think that loss helped us for this year," said Mizusawa, who scored eight three-point baskets in a recent playoff game. "Now, we go into every game knowing that the other team can beat us.  "We won't be overconfident like that again."

Vince Bonsignore of the Los Angeles Daily News also wrote a nice piece about the Harvard-Westlake team and how they solved their selfishness problem and finally came together after almost falling apart:

It would be easy to forget what once defined the Harvard-Westlake girls'  basketball team. Mistrust. Selfishness. Uncertainty.

Now that the Wolverines are one win away from a Division III state championship, now that players get along with one another and a trusting atmosphere has replaced the suspicious, it would be natural to pretend it's always been this way.
But that wouldn't be truthful. And if one element separates the new Wolverines from the old, it's honesty. Between themselves, as individuals, and with their coaches.

A direct line of communication has been established, personal agendas have been cast aside in favor of a common goal. But mostly, an appreciation of what it used to be like remains intact, if only to remind the Wolverines that they never want to revisit that pain again.

How deep is the new faith? Sufficient enough to overcome a bitter loss to Morningside in the Southern Section Division III-A final, then win three consecutive road games in the state playoffs to qualify for Saturday's Division III championship game in Sacramento. The Wolverines (29-5) play Lafayette Acalanes on Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Arco Arena in the final.

"We can look each other in the eye now, or go to one another and be open without any worries," said junior forward Rolake Bamgbose. "Whereas before, I wouldn't say we couldn't talk to each other openly, but let's just say it's a lot more comfortable now. It's more natural."

The impasse Harvard-Westlake coach Brian Taylor was disgusted. Every practice verged on explosion. Some players weren't talking to one another. Others didn't seem willing to sacrifice personal goals for the good of the team. Cliques were forming and jealously ran rampant.  The Wolverines' season was barely a week old, but already in serious jeopardy Everything Taylor had stressed during the offseason, everything the Wolverines had (begin ital)agreed(end ital) to, seemed forgotten.

This was a team that won the Southern Section Division III-A title and advanced to the Southern California Division III final in 1997-98. It was an experienced team with proven leaders and players. Yet the Wolverines were playing like 10 individuals with 10 separate agendas. Taylor had played on teams that internally destroyed themselves when he was in the NBA. Harvard-Westlake was headed in the same direction.  "Players were wondering if this girl wasn't passing me the ball because she didn't like me, or if that girl wasn't setting a pick because she was mad at somebody," forward L'Tanya Robnett said. "There was just a lot of dissension and turmoil. It was pretty bad."

Taylor, tired of playing peacemaker among bickering teammates and weary of repeating the same things, decided the problem wasn't his anymore, but the team's. So he handed it to the players, then demanded they deal with it one way or another.
A few days before a big Dec. 4 game against Palisades, Taylor abruptly halted a practice, then said he was leaving the gym, promising not to return until the players could convince him they were serious about playing like a team again.

"I was fed up, and I'd said everything I could possibly say up to that point," Taylor remembers.  Taylor didn't want any wordy, weightless promises, either. He demanded something concrete, a plan. And if he wasn't satisfied, maybe Harvard-Westlake needed to find another coach.  "I was kind of down that I had to resort to such drastic measures," Taylor said. "But it was needed at that point." The meeting Captains Omelogo Udeze and Brooke Porter spoke first, but this wasn't a meeting designed just for the stars. Every one was urged to speak up, vent their anger and voice an opinion.

Too many players were thinking more about their own success rather than the team's, they all agreed. And if that didn't change soon, the season would be lost.  "Anybody that had something to say got a chance to say it," Robnett said. "And basically we agreed in that meeting to do what was best for the team, instead of only thinking about what was best for us as individuals."

More than that, the players established a covenant among themselves to be honest with one another, respect each other and always put the team first.  "It's one thing for a coach to yell at you when you mess up, that's his job," Bamgbose said. "But it's different when you let a teammate down. That's a lot worse."

The matter of convincing Taylor they were serious was a bit trickier. But the Wolverines finally swayed him by promising they'd change, then telling him they'd changed their team theme from "Just Win" to "Unity." The aftermath In the first game after Harvard-Westlake's air-it-out, no-holds barred team meeting, the Wolverines got blown out by Palisades 60-38.

"I felt bad after that," said Taylor, who wondered if his ultimatum had an adverse effect. "I thought maybe it was because we weren't properly prepared. But in the long run, it turned out to be a positive."  Not just in performance, but in attitude and trust. Laughs replaced frowns, hugs were more frequent than indifferent shrugs. Girls felt comfortable about talking to each other, not worried anymore that somebody would talk behind their back.

"Everybody is so much closer, like a family," Bamgbose said. "We pick each other up and help each other. And there's no hesitation if you want to talk to somebody." The test Harvard-Westlake's faith was validated in the aftermath of the loss to Morningside in the division final. The Wolverines played badly, making just 16 of 53shots (30 percent), while committing 13 turnovers.

It would have been easy to point fingers at that point, assess blame, revert back to the bad habits of before. Instead, Harvard-Westlake immediately established a new goal and went back to work. They lost, it hurt. Now move on.
"We decided to use it more as a positive than a negative," Robnett said. "It was like we were sent a message to step up our play even more, practice harder and go back to the drawing board to come up with a new goal. Something had been taken away from us, but we knew we still had a chance to do something no one at the school's ever done, make history."

Together. 

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