GIRLS: From Brea-Olinda’s polished program to the frustrations at Magnolia, girls basketball is going through growing pains. : At Brea, the Ladycats Are the Pride of the Community

It begins with rhythmic clapping among the 300 spectators who have come to watch what they consider to be the best show in town. Soon, the girls appear outside the locker room and join the clapping that has reached a feverish pitch.

As if on cue, the girls sprint around the perimeter of the basketball court, join in two lines at midcourt and begin their layup drills. It’s almost showtime for the Ladycats of Brea-Olinda High School.

And it’s some show. The Ladycats are poised and precise. They press whenever they can. They didn’t just beat Orange League rival Western on this night, they totally frustrated the Pioneers, running to a 31-5 halftime lead.

There’s nothing complicated about the game plan--a trapping, full-court press, tight, man-to-man defense and excellent offensive teamwork. But the manner in which the Ladycats execute is impressive.

Such results have come about through a combination of a fine feeder program, intense year-round training, community and district support and the ever-present influence of Coach Mark Trakh. Brea-Olinda’s program--one that takes grade-school girls and funnels them through an intricate development system--has become a model for other girls basketball teams to emulate.

During the past 5 1/2 years, Brea has posted a 104-22 record, a winning percentage of .825. The Ladycats have advanced to the Southern Section’s 2-A division title game the past two years.

This season, Brea has emerged as Orange County’s best team and is ranked 24th in the USA Today national prep poll. The Ladycats have defeated 18 consecutive opponents, mostly in routs. The Ladycat success story begins with Mark Trakh, a 29-year-old journalism major from Cal State Long Beach who reluctantly took over as coach of the team in 1978.

Before Trakh arrived, Brea’s girls teams had a record of 4-49. Trakh, who had previously served two seasons as Herb Livsey’s assistant at Western High, admitted he never envisioned becoming a girls basketball coach.

“I liked the idea of having my own team,” he said. “When I started, I wanted a program that would be entertaining, but everybody said you couldn’t do it in girls basketball. I think we’ve proved the critics wrong.”

After more than 100 victories, Trakh is being heralded as one of Orange County’s best girls basketball coaches. Certainly, no one works harder than the New Jersey native, and few have a program that compares to the Ladycats.

Trakh has a simple answer for his success: “It’s easy here because the girls are so good.”

But few realize the amount of work, dedication, district support and community backing that are spent building such an outstanding program.

Long before Carrie Egan and most of her teammates became stars for the Ladycats, they spent countless hours developing their skills in Brea’s youth programs. Most start in the fifth grade in the Brea Police Athletic League and ultimately progress to the Polecats, a traveling all-star team.

The league, in its seventh year, is the brainchild of Lt. Bill Lentini, a Brea police officer. Two officers from the department volunteer to coach a fifth- and sixth-grade girls and boys team from each of the six elementary schools in the Brea Unified School District.

About 180 youths participate in the program, which culminates with a tournament at Brea High in April. The police department spends about $2,500 a year for T-shirts, trophies, medals and a year-end banquet.

“We started the program so the kids at the schools could see the officers in a positive light,” Lentini said. “We wanted to teach them some basic skills, build their confidence and show them that cops can be good guys.

“When we first started, I had to go out on the playgrounds and drag kids onto the basketball court. Now, I drive onto a school ground and I’m surrounded by kids who want to play basketball.”

Youngsters learn to dribble, shoot layups and set screens in the police program. They learn teamwork, and gain confidence.

“Everyone is encouraged to play and everyone on a team must play two minutes each quarter,” Lentini said. “We’ve attracted up to 500 people in Brea’s gym to watch our tournament. This year, we have plans to televise the finals on a local cable TV channel.”

Once a player reaches Brea Junior High, she receives her first indoctrination into the Ladycat basketball system. John Joslin, a history teacher at the school, is the head coach, but Trakh is at the school each morning to oversee the program. The junior high team runs the Ladycat press, and uses offenses and defenses similar to the varsity’s.

The school has a one-hour physical education class emphasizing basketball skills. Sixty girls participate every morning in drills and scrimmages.

“We have a distinct advantage because a lot of schools in the north county don’t have junior high programs,” Joslin said. “We also only feed one high school, so we run many of the same drills that the high school does.

“That way, the girls feel comfortable and know exactly what to do when they get to Brea High.”

The class is open to any girl in the school.

But the talented and more serious players are invited to join the Polecats, a team comprised of seventh- and eighth-grade girls who participate in tournaments in Riverside, San Diego and Long Beach from February to April. They primarily compete against private school all-star teams.

The Polecats, a private club founded by Joslin and financed by the Brea Police Department, have “A” and “B” teams each composed of 20 players.

Joslin: “I started the club simply because no one else had a youth program for girls who wanted to play basketball. You look around and there’s AYSO (soccer) and Bobby Sox (softball) for girls, but no basketball programs. My greatest pleasure is watching the girls grow and progress. My reward is their growth.

“I’ve found that seventh- and eighth-grade girls are not the best athletes, but we try to develop some basketball skills. I’m sure the girls who have played in our program remember the losses more than the wins. We don’t lose very often. Carrie Egan lost only one game in two years here.

Egan, a sophomore at Brea High, vividly recalled her days as a Polecat.

“When you’re in seventh and eighth grade, all you hear about is the Ladycats, that reputation,” she said. “Everyone just tries really hard. They all want to be Ladycats. I know when I was in junior high, we’d go to the Brea High games and I’d go ‘ooh a Ladycat.’ I guess there’s the feeling that you want to be part of something that has a lot of success.

“Now, the kids coming up look up to you . . . they ask advice during the summer. I try to show them how to shoot because I know soon they’ll be up with me. The big advantage of playing on the Polecats is that it introduces you to the (varsity) program, shows you what it’s like. It prepares you for what’s to come.”

Upon entering high school a Polecat player may think she’s ready to graduate to the Ladycat program. But she faces 11 months of intense training, practice sessions, weight lifting and playing the Mark Trakh way. Trakh is an intense individual and expects the same effort from his players.

“I believe in the John Wooden philosophy of working on what we’re going to do in a game and not what our opponent will do,” he said, as he prepared to run his varsity team through a two-hour practice.

“I’m a very predictable coach. I’ll press, play man-to-man defense and run whenever possible. We try to do those things better than anyone else. Yes, I’d say our practices are intense. You just can’t step on the court and turn it on and off.”

Trakh will scream at one of his players for making a mistake. Halfway through practice, he has five girls running wind sprints for allowing an uncontested layup in a full-court press drill.

Trakh is unhappy with the pace of a three-on-two full court drill in which the open player is instructed to shoot a 15-foot jump shot. He yells for the girls to sprint and the intensity, not to mention the pace, increases dramatically.

“There’s a misconception that you can’t coach a girls team the same way you coach the boys,” Trakh said. “If anything, the girls are more mature and more willing to learn. They haven’t had 15 different coaches like many of the boys before they arrive in high school.

“Every coach has his own way of coaching. You have sitdown coaches like Carol Strausberg (Fountain Valley) and Sheila Adams (Foothill) who are successful. Then, you have guys like myself and John Hattrup (Mission Viejo) who yell a lot.

“I’m sure parents with daughters on other teams think I’m a tyrant. But I’ve never had a parent ask me why I’m yelling at their daughter.”

Trakh also can be supportive. When a half-court trap drill goes well in practice, he tells his players, “Come out like this against Anaheim and we’ll bury them in the first quarter.” True to his word, the Ladycats outscored Anaheim, 33-7, in the first quarter en route to a 78-19 win.

Trakh said he first tried to be intense on the court and impersonal off it, but had difficulties getting through to his players.

“I had to show my players I cared for them off the court if I wanted the intensity in practice and in the games,” he said. “I decided to treat my players as athletes on the court, and as girls off the court.”

Egan: “He (Trakh) yells at us a lot, but he’s doing this to make us better. I got really upset a couple of times when I first came here, but the other players told me not to worry about it. I can remember one day he yelled at me and I went home and cried. Now, I think he’s one of my best friends.

“I think the reason the team looks so serious is that we know we have to win. There’s a lot of pressure on us, we’re expected to win.

“But I think it’s a good kind of pressure . . . I love it.”

Coach John Prickett of Magnolia fears the Ladycats are on the verge of building a dynasty.

“Brea’s program is head and shoulders above anyone else in our league, or, for that matter, most of the county,” Prickett said. “They’re doing what everybody else dreams they might do.

“They’re starting kids in the seventh grade playing organized basketball with excellent coaching and no one else in our league has the funding or district support to do that. At times, I wished we were playing other people.”

So do other coaches. When opponents hear that rhythmic clap before the game, they know they are in for a long night.

Steve Lowery also contributed to this article