Etiwanda ready to pick up the pace in basketball playoffs

Kennedy Smith (left) and Aliyahna Morris of Etiwanda High pose for a photo.

Feb. 12, 2023 4 AM PT

Head coach Stan Delus wants one thing straight. When Etiwanda High presses — like, really presses — you’ll know.

The Eagles girls’ basketball team kicked off the season with a 70-22 win over Anaheim Fairmont Prep, still guarding full court up 40 in the third quarter to the grumbles of Fairmont coaches. That, though, was not a press. That is what Delus calls “55,” when he instructs his girls to match up off the inbound.

Etiwanda’s brand is urgency. Playing like they’ve been poisoned and the only antidote is the basketball. Playing pedal-to-the-metal, head-rattling, screaming-down-the-interstate hoops. And the brand must stick, no matter the opponent, no matter the situation.

“I’ve created some monsters defensively,” Delus said. “If I take that away from them, what was it all for when we get to the real game, when we get to playoffs?”

Coming off a Southern Section Open Division championship win over Chatsworth Sierra Canyon last season, the Eagles (26-2) have ascended to national prominence, tabbed as the second seed in Open Division pool play this winter.

Their rise has stuck them in limbo at times: too good for most local programs, but lacking the freedom of a private school to schedule tougher competition. Boasting immense talent, with the fiery duo of junior Kennedy Smith and sophomore Aliyahna Morris, yet fielding a team with girls who simply come to Etiwanda because it’s their home school.

So their brand has to be urgency. They have to work. Because they still see themselves as a public program, punching up against the best.

“Look who I have to go against,” Delus said. “I’m a public school that has to go against Mater Dei, Sierra Canyon, La Jolla Country Day.”

“… I have to be able to know that my girls are prepared mentally, physically, spiritually, psychologically,” he continued, “to handle the moment that they’re getting ready to go into.”

After the season-opening Fairmont Prep game, Smith and Morris stood in the hallway of tournament host Redondo Union as some of their teammates began to excitedly gather behind them. As Smith and Morris turned their heads, their teammates propped a phone up against the door handle to the gym, hopped into frame, and started to film a TikTok.

The duo stood, flat-faced.

“This is all the time,” Smith deadpanned.

“This,” Morris said, before running over to join in, “they gotta stop at practice.”

The Eagles lost a hint of momentum after last season, when now-junior and second-leading scorer Destiny Agubata transferred to Corona Santiago. A core player was gone. In her place was a handful of freshmen and transfers.

“I don’t think they understand the high expectations that we live up to, where we’re trying to go,” Smith said. “I don’t know if some of them want to go to college, in the high level that we’re trying to reach.”

Smith’s journey, in particular, is charted not by talent — averaging 24.5 points, 8.4 rebounds and four assists per game as a junior — but by leadership. She demands greatness, Delus said. And in the summer, tensions ran high at times, with returners telling newcomers they needed to “get it together,” Delus remembered, “or transfer.”

“Sometimes, I can come off a little harsh,” Smith said.

She was born into a basketball family, her brother R.J. a former La Verne Damien standout now playing at Colorado. And everything Smith does, Delus said, is to match her brother and please her late father Randolph, who’d call a young Smith his “Maya Moore.”

Randolph died from colon cancer when Smith was 6. She’s always thinking about him, she said. And in Delus’ mind, it gives her that fire.

“It shaped her a lot, and really why she has a hard exterior,” Delus said. “Because she plays the game as if it’s her last. And that’s not just a cliche saying. She feels like her dad was taken away too soon.”

By January, chemistry had shifted.

Trust had grown, Delus said, in practices. Leaders like Smith and Morris had become comfortable going to the bench, more confident than an increased pool of depth could maintain their intensity. It unlocked strong play from freshman guard Arynn Finley while 6-foot-2 Cajon transfer Mykelle Richards has given Etiwanda another active rebounder and defender.

Yet the problem of competition persisted. At a micro level, Etiwanda had trouble scheduling games for about three seasons, Delus said.

“Nobody wants to play us,” the coach said.

Etiwanda coach Stan Delus gives instructions to players on the court from the sideline.

Over the winter, the team was denied a request to participate in the Nike Tournament of Champions in Arizona, Delus said. Under district policy, the team couldn’t miss that many days of school.

Therein lies a divide between them and a private program like Sierra Canyon, the 26-0 juggernaut who seems to be Etiwanda’s barometer. The Trailblazers have traveled out of state for 11 games this season. Etiwanda’s played two.

The controllable, to Delus, is constant intensity. Running “55” from tip to buzzer, like they did in an early-season win against Newport Beach Sage Hill.

“They make you work,” Sage Hill coach Kerwin Walters said.

After last year’s Open Division win and subsequent loss in a regional playoff rematch with Sierra Canyon, Etiwanda is aiming for Round 3 against the Trailblazers, pushing for another championship public-vs-private showdown at the Honda Center on Feb. 25 for the Open Division crown.

“They better be ready for Etiwanda,” Morris said. “Just like that.”

“Just like that,” Smith added, laughing. “Period.”