2005 Girls of Summer: San Diego Classic


When Jules Verne conceived Around the World in Eighty Days in the early 20th century, he would never have imagined that a prep sports junkie like yours truly would be able to complete half the journey on the roads and airways of the Western U.S. covering the Girls of Summer in five weeks time.

Over 10,000 miles traveled with 26 of the 35 days away from home visiting a total of five states. Six NCAA sanctioned viewing events plus the NIKE Elite Skills Academy and a total of over 8,000 players in attendance of which we were able to effectively cover approximately 1,200 of them.

In the four to five days on the road with no basketball action, we even found time to visit Mt. St. Helens and a wonderful mineral spring spa in Washington, the mouth of the Columbia River at historic Astoria as well as Mt. Hood in Oregon, Hoover Dam and the Colorado River gorge in Arizona. This, my friends, was the ultimate journey.

Parts I, II and III of the series took us through the first half of the NCAA July viewing period. Over the next week in parts IV, V, VI and my final wrap and rankings we will focus on the second half of the month when we covered Wade Vickery's San Diego Classic, the Main Event for girls in Las Vegas, the Pacific Coast Shootout in Orange County and the Midsummer Nights Classic in San Diego.

San Diego Classic

Talk about a family affair. My friend Wade Vickery, who in 25 years as girls coach at Santana High in Santee compiled a 588-109 won-lost record, has now completed his 19th Classic. Together with his wife Nancy, son Adam, daughter Carina, brother Steve and sister Sue, Vickery pulled it off again with a record 348 teams competing in three divisions and more venues than I can remember (actually there were nine). The Classic has something for everyone including the 150 plus college coaches that scouted the event.

The 3A Division had 16 pools of eight teams with some of California's finest teams and a few recent and reigning state champions from California (Bishop Montgomery of Torrance, Carondelet of Concord, Troy of Fullerton and La Jolla Country Day) and other states as well (Centennial from Las Vegas, Mandan from North Dakota and Mayfield from Las Cruces, New Mexico).

In 2A play a large number of top-level programs were entered (Bishop's La Jolla, Healdsburg, Oaks Christian Westlake Village, Oregon City, Rancho Bernardo, Redondo Union, San Clemente) with many of the 16 pools of eight teams sending squads comprised of underclass players. This was also the case in 3A where girls good enough to be invited to the NIKE Nationals and several other events going on at the same time were absent from their high school squads.

The 2A field was very strong with host Santana, Oaks Christian and Orange Lutheran the favorites. Much to the dismay of Vickery, his Sultans with power forward Jordan Franey (recently committed to UC Santa Barbara) didn't make it to the final game but Orange Lutheran did and beat Edison of Huntington Beach in the championship game. Junior point guard Tawni Sands handled the rock and the pressure while fellow junior LinKaren Carney was top scorer for the Lancers, who finished 21-7 last year after losing to Rosary of Fullerton in the CIF Southern Section Div III playoffs.

The 3A competition was excellent and in the end became a showcase for a Windward Academy program that looks to be a probable state small school power in California for years to come.

When my old friend Steve Smith arrived at this Div IV enrollment school a couple of years ago, no one in the basketball world had really ever heard of this tiny school between Santa Monica and Culver City off the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. Smith, who coached the men at Dominican College in San Rafael from 1990-97 before spending five years in the WNBA has definitely put Windward on the map and created a winning attitude amongst the players on his team.

The pre-tournament press information identified twenty plus players (including quite a few who opted out as previously mentioned) as the marquee participants but not one of them were from Windward. In the end, however, it was recently hired USC coach Mark Trakh who looked like the real winner as his committed recruit, 6-1 point and shooting guard Hailey Dunham, my top-rated player at the Classic, led Windward past a game Troy of Fullerton squad that was missing the Neabors sisters, 41-37 in the championship game.

"This may be our deepest team ever," said last year's State Coach of the Year Kevin Kiernan, whose team looks to be poised to claim a second consecutive state Div II championship. 6-foot sophomore Melanie Ysaguirre and 5-foot-10 freshman Amanda Sims played extremely well and consistent during the entire tournament and we confided to many of the college coaches that 5-foot-1 junior point guard Sara Yee was as good as anyone we have seen at her size and will definitely play at the next level. Freshman guard Trisha Goddard and junior forward Jaclyn Blied also played well for Kiernan's charges who went 33-2 last season culminating in a 47-41 win over Mitty of San Jose in the state title game.

This tournament, however, belonged to Windward Academy and the fact that Troy was missing some starters did nothing to detract from a team that coach Smith feels is a top 25 team in the state coming in and we agree. No one on Troy was able to handle Dunham as she continuously got the ball in good position both up top where she nailed several three-pointers or down low where she spun and dribbled past defenders to score.

Also looking exceptional was 6-0 junior Erica Latimer who handled the ball well, made crisp passes, hit the boards hard and held Windward in the game defensively when Troy looked poised to win the contest. With a 4.2 GPA to go with a strong game and excellent attitude this young woman will be a great addition to any of the schools including Harvard, UC Berkeley, Boston College, UC Santa Barbara, Arizona State and UCLA that have shown interest. Besides the two incoming seniors, Smith's Wildcats are deep with young talent and several of the girls impressed us at the Classic. Freshmen 5-foot-4 guard Monica DeAngelis, 5-foot-9 forward Kenisha Smith and 5-foot-11 forward Talesse Frank all looked good while 5-10 freshman forward Rana Simpson and her well rounded game scored as high as anyone in the class for the entire month.

"Nobody really knew much about us (except Trakh, Arizona's Joan Bonvicini and a few dozen other coaches who watched their games) and we kind of shocked some people," said Dunham. "Now our goal is a state championship," chimed in Latimer.

Besides the girls previously mentioned we will be including an additional several dozen players we saw and evaluated in the 3A division in the upcoming wrap-up ands ratings feature.

Besides the players mentioned above, we will be including an additional several dozen players we saw and evaluated in the 3A and 2A division in the upcoming wrap-up and ratings feature.

Next up…the Main Event for girls in Las Vegas.