High Schools:

Costa Mesa High Coach Nichole Maddox questioned the whereabouts of her girls’ basketball team Thursday night.

The Mustangs lost at rival Estancia, 53-38, in a fight for second place in the Orange Coast League. After venting for a couple of minutes, it finally hit Maddox. She understood why her players’ minds were elsewhere.

One of their teammates wasn’t in the gym.

Jessica Hayes isn’t playing with the Mustangs (12-10, 2-2 in league) anymore. Not because she doesn’t want to, but because she can’t.

“Our senior forward is seriously ill right now,” Maddox said. “She’s been in and out of the hospital. Right after Christmas [she got ill]. I think [her being out] could’ve contributed.”

Hayes spent Thursday at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Noy Thomas, Hayes’ mother, said her daughter returned to the hospital after an infection flared up due to internal bleeding discovered in Hayes before the start of the New Year.

Thomas made it the Battle for the Bell game to support the Mustangs because they’ve been there for Hayes during these trying times. She wore her daughter’s No. 10 jersey and hung up a sign on the wall behind the team’s bench.

“We Win For #10” is what the sign read. Each of the games Hayes has missed is on display on one side. The other has each of the players’ names.

“We mourned her basketball season already,” Thomas said. “She ended up having a hematoma, bleeding in her muscle, in her right thigh that was 11 centimeters, five centimeters wide and four centimeters deep. What happened is she hurt her knee and developed this random acquired autoimmune factor eight deficiency, which is a clotting factor. It was after she had strep throat. She played a game, hurt her knee, and the antibodies from her body went to help her knee and attacked the blood so bad that it created an inhibitor. I took her to the [emergency room] four times because it’s so rare. It’s one-in-five million [people] that this happens to.

“She had an infection [Tuesday]. They had to put in a [peripherally inserted central catheter] line. She’ll be in [the hospital] for like three or four more days until her blood culture shows no bacteria. She’s going to recover. She might make it back for softball [in the spring].”

 Coaches are always in search of bulletin board material. The Estancia High boys’ soccer team found it in the Daily Pilot.

First-year head coach Robert Castellano allowed his predecessor to address the team before the Battle for the Bell match against Costa Mesa Friday.

All Gannon Burks said he needed to do was hold up the sports section and regurgitate a couple of lines from a story I wrote about the Mustangs’ opportunity to end Estancia’s supremacy in league. Burks later found what he thought was a good place for the paper: the trash can.

The Eagles showed they’re still the kings of the Orange Coast League. They shut down rival Costa Mesa, 5-0, and took sole possession of first place from the Mustangs.

“I want to thank Coach Burks,” said Castellano, whose Eagles (10-7-3, 3-1-0 in league) are hot, having only dropped one of the last 11 matches. “I didn’t have to say anything. Coach Burks got the paper and told us, ‘This is our house. We defend our pitch. We’re the defending champs.’ ”

Burks is right. In its first three seasons, the Orange Coast League has known only one champ: Estancia.

 There are a couple of boys’ sports in which Sage Hill School is winless against its rival, St. Margaret’s. Football is one.

You can erase basketball.

The Lightning on Friday defeated the Tartans for the first time in school history. Mark Loper hit two clutch free throws with 9.9 seconds left as Sage Hill was victorious in the Academy League road game, 53-51.

The victory was huge, not only because it was against St. Margaret’s, but because the Lightning (13-5, 3-2 in league) snapped a two-game skid in league.