PLNC Basketball Emerges in a Flash

Could this be the Firehouse Five revisited?

In the early 1950s, the Point Loma Nazarene men’s basketball team was christened with the aforementioned nickname because they, “amazed people with the way they got up and down the court,” said first-year Coach Dan Davis. “It was like they were on the way to a fire.”

Davis wasn’t even born when the Firehouse Five thrived, but he is familiar with its lore. Various Davis family members numbering 20 have played or coached at PLNC, starting with Dan’s grandfather, who was on the basketball team when the school was in Pasadena. Dan’s dad played PLNC basketball before the Firehouse Five era, and his brother was there during that period.

“It’s pretty amazing to be able to carry out the family tradition,” said Davis, who has a handful of nephews who also would like to carry on the Crusader tradition. The last Davis to attend PLNC was Dan’s cousin, Brad Davis, who played basketball during the 1989-90 season.

Davis, 37, takes over at PLNC with an impressive resume. He played college basketball at New Mexico before he took an assistant coaching job at Pasadena City College, where he stayed for seven years before taking an assistant position on Portland’s women’s team last season.

With an emphasis on full-court pressure defense and an up-tempo offense, Davis has led the Crusaders to a 3-2 record.

He doesn’t expect his 1992-93 team to follow the lead of the Firehouse Five, but Davis’ team already has closed in on a record the group established in 1954, when the team scored 139 points in a victory against La Verne.

With a 133-116 victory in the championship of the Triton Tip-off Tournament against Redlands Saturday, PLNC zeroed in on the record. But Davis isn’t as eager to rewrite the record books as he is to get the Crusaders, who haven’t had a winning season since 1986-87, back in the winner’s circle.

“Redlands forced it, they run the Loyola (Marymount) style, they don’t stop for anything,” Davis said. “Redlands pushed it, and my guys responded. To do that again, we’d have to play another team like Redlands, otherwise, it won’t happen. The important thing is to stay on the winning end.”

Helping PLNC so far is Eastern Washington transfer Shawn De Laittre, who was the MVP of the Triton tournament and scored 41 points against UCSD and 39 against Redlands.

Other Crusader factors are center Ed Morgan, a transfer from Orange Coast College, point guard Julius Coleman, swingman Frank Dews and power forward Charlie Simmons.

Dog Paddling? The UCSD men’s swimming team is 0-4. The women aren’t much better at 2-3. It is just where the Tritons want to be. But you won’t catch Coach Doug Boyd worrying.

With 13 men and nine women returning, the fourth-year coach expects both teams to be challenging long-time champion Kenyon come time for nationals in mid-March.

As Boyd explains it, Division III UCSD regularly swims against top-caliber Division I schools in order to prepare for nationals, where it has consistently finished as runner-up to Kenyon.

“Records don’t mean anything for us,” Boyd said. “Last year we were 1-7 before NCAAs and we got second.”

The Speedo Collegiate Cup, which starts today at Long Beach, will be a good measuring stick for the Tritons. Boyd had 21 of his swimmers shave for this meet to try to make NCAA qualifying times.

Sabrina Lum, an All-American in the 200 fly, has qualified in that event and is six seconds faster than she was last year at this time. Dustin Matthew just made her national consideration time in the 200 breast. Connie Romero, Jocelyn Rothbard and Allison Dunn are other top Triton women.

On the men’s side, three-time national 200 back champion Travis Miller is close to qualifying times as are Mike McNeff (200, 500 frees) and John Flowers (50, 100 frees). Mark Fahlen, Brian Baskin, Taylor Spangler and Gabe Speyer beef up UCSD.

Boyd thinks his men’s team has a good shot of beating Kenyon, but it’s a tall order for the women.

“What the (Kenyon) men lost was like the 49ers losing Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. (UCSD) will definitely be up there,” Boyd said. “But the (Kenyon) women will definitely win. They were the best team ever, top to bottom last year, and they didn’t lose anyone.”

Simple Thinking: Orange County officials weren’t too creative when they named the bowl games which will be played Saturday at Costa Mesa’s Le Bard Stadium.

The feature game between top-ranked Saddleback (10-0) and second-ranked Community College of San Francisco (10-0) is called the Simple Green/Orange County Bowl.

Fine. But the game that follows it is the Simple Green/Orange County Classic between 11th-ranked Palomar (9-1) and unranked Mt. San Antonio (8-2) at 7 p.m.

Dan and Dave: Reebok twins Dan O’Brien and Dave Johnson, are back. But this time around, they don’t have to settle a thing. They will participate in the Gold Medal Decathlon Camp at PLNC Friday through Monday. O’Brien and Johnson will be joined by the top 23 male decathletes in the United States, including Olympic gold medalists Bob Mathias (1948, ‘52), Milt Campbell (1956), Bill Toomey (1968) and Bruce Jenner (1976) and triple jump Olympic champion Al Joyner (1984).

San Diego Spikers: Helping the Colorado Buffaloes defeat 15-time champion Nebraska to win their first Big Eight volleyball championship last week were two former area high school standouts. Helix High’s Karrie Downey, the 1990 Division II Player of the Year, started for Colorado and had several kills. Ex-La Jolla star Leah Williams, the Division III Co-Player of the Year in 1991, sat on the bench.

Bad to the Boards: The UCSD women’s basketball team (1-3) may not be winning much, but the Tritons are keeping up their tradition as strong rebounders.

Two years ago, UCSD led the nation in the Division III rebounding margin. Last season the Tritons were third with a 14.8 average against their opponents. Early into this year, UCSD is averaging 13.5 rebounds more than the competition. Senior center Erica Scholl leads the team with 16.3 rebounds a game and 16.8 points.