Mustangs face long road

Coach Jim Weeks has been impressed with the drive of the Costa Mesa High girls’ basketball team all season.

Today, the Mustangs have a different kind of drive, and it’s a long one. They head five-plus hours north to Oakhurst, for the Southern California Division III regional quarterfinals of the CIF State Championships.

No. 6-seeded Costa Mesa will play at No. 3-seeded Yosemite High of Oakhurst, a four-time defending Central Section champion, today at 6 p.m.

The Mustangs (20-11) plan to leave today at 10:30 a.m., Weeks said, and probably won’t get back to Orange County until about 1 a.m. Friday. But the ride home will likely seem even longer if Costa Mesa can’t contain Yosemite senior guard Katie Menton.

The Pepperdine-bound Menton, who stands 5-foot-9, has averaged 24.2 points per game for Yosemite (22-7), the North Sequoia League champion. And she is clearly the Badgers’ go-to player — No. 2 scorer Patricia O’Neill, a senior forward, averages just six points per game.

Weeks said he will probably use sophomore guards Amy Gentling and Miriah Malapira, two of the Mustangs’ fastest players, to try to slow Menton down.

“Amy’s been doing a great job, and Miriah has quickness and good position,” Weeks said. “You never know, coming from different areas like that, how used to man-to-man defense they are.”

Costa Mesa lost to St. Mary’s Academy of Inglewood, 64-37, in the Southern Section Division IV-AA title game Friday at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach. The Mustangs were behind, 19-2, after the first quarter.

“We’re not going to beat junior high teams doing that,” Weeks said. “But we talked about how hard we played after the first quarter.”

Weeks said he also thinks playing back in a high school environment should help his team.

“Even though we have a long trip, it’ll be back into a high school gym,” he said. “I’m not sure we were ready to play in a big college environment, with nothing behind the backboards.”

Costa Mesa will probably need another big game out of junior guard Michelle Figueroa and senior center Jennifer Courtney. Figueroa has averaged a team-high 15.2 points per game in the playoffs, leading the Mustangs in scoring in four of their five games.

Should the Mustangs beat Yosemite, they would play either Bishop Amat or Cathedral Catholic in the Southern California regional semifinals on Saturday.

Weeks said he had nightmares that Mesa would face Bishop Amat in the quarterfinals, but he was satisfied with the Mustangs’ No. 6 seed.

“I’m happy with where we are,” Weeks said. “To get to the semis of the Southern California regional would be a great accomplishment.”

The CIF Division III Southern California championship game is scheduled for March 17 at 10 a.m. at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, and the Division III state championship game will be March 24 at 1 p.m. at Sacramento’s Arco Arena.