Named PCAC Coach of the Year for the fourth time in six seasons, Leigh Marshall and the top-seeded Comets have worked hard to stay on top.<\/p>\n
SAN MARCOS \u2014 Twenty-eight and one.<\/p>\n
Twenty-eight times this season, Leigh Marshall\u2019s basketball team walked off the court with a victory, and only once did they come back to Palomar College with a loss (but they also beat that team, Mt. San Jacinto, twice).<\/p>\n
For their efforts, the women\u2019s basketball team went into the postseason as the top-seeded team\u2014and along the way, earned Marshall her fourth title as Coach of the Year in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference – North (PCAC).<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the way she tells it, at least.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like it\u2019s a team award,\u201d said Marshall during a recent interview. \u201cThey\u2019ve earned it for me. If they weren\u2019t working the way they work and they weren\u2019t successful, I wouldn\u2019t be Coach of the Year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marshall\u2019s office at Palomar is around the corner from The Dome, where her team has consistently dominated its opponents during the eight seasons she has been coaching the Comets.<\/p>\n
The squad will light up The Dome again on Saturday, March 3 for their Sweet Sixteen game against Moorpark. The game starts at 7 p.m. and the winner will advance to the Elite Eight, which will be held this year in Ventura.<\/p>\n
On Marshall\u2019s desk stand a collection of first-place trophies\u2014she said she doesn\u2019t keep the second-place awards\u2014and it wasn\u2019t clear how she would fit her fourth Coach of the Year plaque into the crowded awards cabinet nearby.<\/p>\n
Taped to the wall was a note from a former Comet, Aleijah Tomlinson: \u201cDear Coach, I love you. Remember to smile and have a good day!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was my starting point guard, Aleijah Tomlinson, who came to us from Los Angeles after she moved in with her dad in Ramona,\u201d Marshall recalled. \u201cShe was really raw but she practiced every day, she just really worked, and she earned a scholarship out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marshall grew up in Costa Mesa and then played basketball for Orange Coast College, where, during her sophomore season, she was the team captain when the Pirates won the only state women\u2019s basketball title in the school\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Even then, she knew she wanted to coach basketball: \u201cI was realistic about what I was. I mean, I love the game. But I\u2019m 5\u20194\u201d. I was just fast, I was a scrapper and had a high basketball IQ.\u201d<\/p>\n
She spent five years assisting her former coach at Orange Coast while earning her bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in kinesiology. Then she came to Palomar, where the women\u2019s basketball program needed serious help.<\/p>\n
During Marshall\u2019s third season at Palomar, the Comets advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time. \u00a0\u201cThree years later, we were the first San Diego team ever to make the Elite 8 and the first to make the Final Four,\u201d she recalled. \u201cWe lost in the Final Four last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about her team\u2019s consistent success, Marshall said, \u201cOur culture is about being a hard worker\u2014to get out there and grind. We don\u2019t treat \u2018em like girls, we treat \u2018em like basketball players. Mental toughness is huge for us. Toughness and hard work have a lot to do with it. A lot of times we \u2018tough\u2019 our way to wins.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Marshall, the rewarding part is watching her players develop during their time at Palomar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had 30 sophomores in the past five years, and 25 have received scholarships to move on and play basketball at the next level,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely rewarding to watch our kids (go on). That\u2019s why they come here, if they\u2019re serious about basketball\u2014to go to the next level. To watch them do that is definitely what I\u2019m most proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"