Morningside’s Girls Have Score to Settle

For the second consecutive year, the Inglewood Morningside High School girls’ basketball team will play Oakland Fremont for the state Division I championship at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

Last season, Morningside held a 52-44 lead with four minutes remaining in the game, then went cold and lost, 53-52.

The Lady Monarchs (31-1) will get a chance for redemption Saturday night, but only after receiving a scare last Saturday in their Southern Regional championship game against San Diego Point Loma.

That game was the most bizarre of the six championship games at the Sports Arena.

The Lady Monarchs completely dominated the first five minutes, running off to a 17-0 lead. Then they were outscored in the next 11 minutes, 27-13, and led at halftime, 30-27.

Their problems started when junior center Lisa Leslie picked up her third foul early in the second quarter.

“I figured that (Point Loma) would come back,” Morningside Coach Frank Scott said. “I just did not see them coming back so far and so fast.

“Having Leslie in foul trouble definitely played a major part in their comeback.”

Point Loma continued its rally in the second half when Leslie picked up her fourth foul with almost six minutes left in the third quarter. The Pointers even took a 36-30 lead with 2:24 left in the quarter.

“Our intensity level just fell off at that point,” Scott said. “We did not have the same aggressiveness and just did not keep them down.”

Scott took a gamble with 5:59 remaining in the game when he sent Leslie back in.

“I kept her out as long as I could,” said Scott.

The 6-foot-5 Leslie made her presence felt immediately and the Lady Monarchs made their move. After several lead changes, she made a turnaround eight-foot jump shot to put Morningside ahead to stay with 55 seconds left.

“She is probably the best offensive player, outside of Cheryl Miller, that I have seen,” Scott said of Leslie, who finished with 22 points and 11 rebounds in her 21 minutes on the court.

Leslie’s last basket did not seal victory for Morningside, as Point Loma guard Monica Filer had a chance to win the game with seven seconds left.

But Filer, who finished with 20 points, missed a 28-foot shot, thinking that that there were only three seconds remaining, giving the Lady Monarchs the victory.

“Point Loma gave us problems with their man-to-man defense,” Scott said. “Most teams play us in a zone because of our quickness and size. Their defense was tough like Kentucky Southern (the only school Morningside has lost to this season).”

Jo Jo Witherspoon, the Lady Monarchs’ point guard and only senior, had a difficult time with the Pointers’ defense.

Witherspoon, who averaged nearly 18 points a game during the season, had only nine points and two assists.

“She is the only player who handles the ball for us,” Scott said of Witherspoon. “Point Loma did a great job in denying her the ball, which made it tough on her.”

Morningside has four other underclassmen playing major roles.

Forward Janet Davis, is a 6-3 freshman who averages 11 points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots per game. Scott refers to her as his star of the future.

The Lady Monarchs also have sophomores Akiba Flanigan, a 5-9 forward who averages seven points a game; 5-8 guard Tyesha Whiting and 5-7 guard Bridget Williams.

This will be the second meeting of the season between Morningside and Fremont. The Lady Monarchs defeated Fremont in December, 50-42.

Morningside’s boys almost joined the girls in Oakland but lost their Division III game against Mission Viejo Trabuco Hills, the Southern Section 3-A champion, 60-57.

The Monarchs, who lost in the Southern Section 3-A semifinals, played the opposite of the Lady Monarchs in the first half, falling behind, 22-8.

Morningside co-Coach Carl Franklin said the Monarchs’ intense desire to win cost them in the first quarter.

“We wanted to win so badly at first,” Franklin said. “Once things started going wrong, we got frustrated and were complaining on every play.”

Morningside’s bench was called for a technical foul early in the second quarter.

After that, the Monarchs outscored the Mustangs in the last four minutes of the first half, 21-6.

“We settled down after that technical,” Franklin said. “The momentum seemed to move to us when we started to play a different type of . . . pressure defense.”

In the second half, Morningside fell victim to what has at times plagued its girls’ team, inability to maintain a lead.

The Monarchs led with 5:40 left in the fourth quarter, 51-41, before Trabuco Hills rallied.

“We knew that we are not any good at stalling,” said Morningside’s other coach, Ron Randle. “It is just a situation where we were able to get the lead by forcing the play but then had to make the decision to either stay with it or pull out.”

Morningside tried both, lost its momentum and was outscored the rest of the way, 19-6.

“We were fortunate to have been invited into the state playoffs after losing in the (sectional) semifinals,” Franklin said. “I am glad that we made a good showing.”