Fantastic Ford fast becomes Pirates’ leader

When Courtney Ford is on campus running to class, she is just like any other typical college student.

But, when Orange Coast College’s 5-foot-7 freshman guard steps onto the basketball court, there is nothing typical about the way she runs past defenders on the way to the rim.

Ford’s progression in the sport has been remarkable considering that she never played a minute of organized basketball until she signed up for a summer program before her freshman year at Villa Park High. She learned how to play in a system pretty quickly and earned a spot on the varsity team by the next season. After two more years of playing competitively, Ford blossomed into a star as a senior.

“Courtney always found a way to come up with the ball and make some crazy shot when we needed it,” said OCC freshman Katie Kissee, who played with Ford at Villa Park.

Ford might have a circus shot or two today, when the Pirates begin play in their Coast Christmas Classic, an eight-team tournament that runs through Wednesday. OCC (10-2) opens with San Diego Mesa at 7 p.m.

At that time, Ford will be hoping to continue to build off her high school senior year. That’s when her development into a tenacious defender, smothering opponents with relentless pressure, led to an increase in takeaways, more fast-break attempts and additional scoring opportunities. With a natural ability to finish off plays, she quickly became an overwhelming offensive weapon.

Thanks to that outstanding season, she was recognized as one of Orange County’s elite players, receiving awards for Century League MVP and first-team All-CIF.

The Pirates were lucky Ford was a late bloomer and waited until her senior year to break out. If she was great throughout, she may not have slipped under the recruiting radar of many four-year universities.

As it was, the only one she had interest in was UC San Diego, but the timing wasn’t right and with a little urging from Tritons Coach Janell Jones, Ford chose OCC.

“I had a few offers and I went on some visits but it just didn’t feel right to me,” Ford said. “Orange Coast is close to home for me.”

Through 12 games, Ford has stepped up and become the leading scorer on the most prolific offense among community colleges in Southern California. She is averaging 20.7 points per game. OCC boasts the top-scoring offense in Southern California, averaging 82 points a game.

“I didn’t think that she would be averaging that much, but in a way it’s not surprising because I knew she had the ability,” OCC Coach Mike Thornton said. “She’s a big reason why we’re No. 1 in scoring, but we are real deep and have a lot of options.”

The transition from high school basketball to playing at the collegiate level isn’t easy. Some can’t handle the step up, while others make the necessary adjustments. Thornton knew that Ford would be able to adapt, but maybe not this soon.

“It’s a little surprising but I know she’s really competitive, and a scorer,” Thornton said. “We create a lot of points off of our defense and she’s real hard to defend because of that.”

Ford didn’t even think that she would be enjoying this much success so early in her career at OCC.

“I never thought that I’d be scoring this many points,” Ford said. “I thought that it would be a lot harder than high school.”

Coming into the season, Thornton wasn’t sure what to expect. The talented sophomore-led team that made it to the final four of the state playoffs in 2005 was gone, and the new nucleus of freshman meant that this year’s Pirates had to find their own identity.

“My biggest concern coming into the season was that we only had two players that had ever played college basketball before, but I knew the 10 freshmen we had coming in were talented,” Thornton said. “We completely changed our style of play from last year … The way that we’re playing really suits the athletic ability of our team.”

After blowing out its first two opponents by a combined 88 points, OCC must have felt unbeatable. The feeling didn’t last long and the talented young Pirates got a valuable wake-up-call. Two-straight losses ran their record to 2-2, but more importantly it taught them a lesson.

“I think subconsciously the thinking was that this thing was going to be easy,” Thornton said. “In a sense it was a reminder for a young team that we do have to play hard all the time to be successful.”

Determined not to make the same mistakes again, the Pirates’ high-octane attack kicked it into fifth gear, blitzing Citrus before the Owls ever knew what hit them. Offensively, Citrus was only able to put 49 points on the board while on defense they were helpless against OCC’s depth. When the dust settled, the Pirates finished with 100 points, a feat that hadn’t been done in nearly 10 years. Ford led the Pirates with 20 points and 10 rebounds.

“Before the game we just wanted to go out there and win the game, we didn’t have any expectations,” Kissee said. “Towards the end of the game we were like ‘We can do this’. It was pretty cool to make it there.”

Behind Ford, the team has won eight straight and topped the 90-point plateau twice more. As long as this year’s Pirates continue to opportunistically hunt for takeaways and feed the offenses’ insatiable appetite for points, they just might equal or perhaps one-up the success of last year’s squad.

Ford is sure to be the catalyst.