Behind Meek, San Pasqual Treats Norsemen as Mere Longshots : Basketball: Center scores 38 points in 79-55 victory. Valhalla is 9 for 49 on three-pointers.

Erik Meek, the best player in the county over the past four seasons, is finally going to play in a championship game.

Meek saw to that Wednesday, scoring 38 points and pulling down 21 rebounds to lead San Pasqual to a 79-55 San Diego Section Division II semifinal victory over Valhalla.

With the victory, in front of 1,800 at Grossmont College, San Pasqual advanced to Saturday’s final against Avocado League rival El Camino at 4:30 p.m.

This was an upset in that unseeded San Pasqual (18-7) defeated No. 3 Valhalla (23-7), but few will probably view it as such.

Meek is 6-feet-10, Duke-bound and doggone tough to stop when he gets going like he did Wednesday night. Valhalla’s tallest player is 6-2.

The Norsemen gave it a shot, though. Did they ever.

All but conceding the inside shot because of Meek and 6-5 Richard Stark, Valhalla fired up 49 three-point attempts, a section record.

That only nine of the attempts--18%--hit the mark was Valhalla’s demise.

“You can’t say we didn’t get the shots,” Valhalla Coach Manny Silva said. “We got plenty of them.”

Said Eagle Coach Tom Buck, “We’ve got two guards, Chris Hancock and Erik Davidson, who haven’t gotten a lot of credit this year, and they played some great defense out on the perimeter. Our philosophy is, if they’re a three-point team, make them beat us with twos. They couldn’t do that. Our goal was to hold them to 60 points, and we thought we’d be in good shape. We were right.”

Valhalla was much better inside three-point range, making 10 of 24 (42%), but it wasn’t nearly enough to counter Meek.

Though missing his first five shots, Meek had 17 of San Pasqual’s 28 points at the half. In the second quarter, he had 10 of the Eagle’s 12.

Nine in the third quarter and 12 in the fourth gave him only his second-best scoring night in three playoff games. He had 41 points and 23 rebounds in a 73-49 victory over University City, then followed that with 27 points and 14 rebounds in a 70-59 victory over Torrey Pines.

San Pasqual led by only two, 28-26, at halftime, and by only five, 54-49, a minute into the fourth quarter. A 25-6 run to end the game speaks for itself.

Now comes the long-awaited--some say overdue--trip to the Sports Arena.

“It feels great,” Meek said. “We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

Notice the we. A team player despite his enormous physical advantage, Meek never forgets to credit his teammates.

David Durst scored 13 of his 15 points in the third quarter as San Pasqual nearly doubled its first-half production. Stark scored all nine of his points in the second half, and Hancock and Davidson were thorns in the side of Valhalla’s shooters all night.

“This team has played best in big games, and we’ve got the biggest one coming up,” Meek said.

Mike Nalu and Mark Dillon, three-point specialist who have taken turns setting one record or another this season, led Valhalla with 23 and 15 points. Cole Deneen, the tallest Norseman at 6-2, added 12.