DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL MALE ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:Titus at home with Mustangs

Removed from the only place he knew, the Marshall Islands, Moses Titus felt scared at age 8 in his new country.

The U.S. represented new challenges for Titus, learning a new way of life to a new language. If Titus could, he would swim back to one of the 29 atolls or five islands located in the central Pacific Ocean.

He said living in the Marshall Islands, located roughly halfway between Hawaii and Australia, felt like being in a Jacuzzi. The isolation gave Titus peace.

“It was hard,” said Titus of adjusting. “I couldn’t learn [English] that fast. I came here and they held me back a grade. I had to learn the language, and I barely know how to speak my [native] language, [Marshallese], now.”

Looking back, Titus is thankful for his father, Abtain, bringing the Titus family to America for a better life. And for whoever held him back a year as a third-grader.

Titus has turned it up in his senior year at Costa Mesa High (13-7 overall, 1-1 Orange Coast League), rising as one of the area’s premier shooters. He’s dead-on from behind the three-point line, where he’s hit nine, seven, six and five three-pointers in a game already.

You wouldn’t expect Titus to be a gunner and averaging close to 20 points per game. His disheveled hair makes him look like he belongs on the bench. His height, he claims he’s 5-foot-10, but Coach Jeff McDaniel chides Titus, saying he’s really six inches shorter.

Whatever, more like 5-7. Titus brushes it aside, like everything else that comes the Islander’s way. He’s cool, laid back, all the stereotypes of someone from an island.

But when it comes to playing basketball, his teammate and good friend, senior Hung Duong, said Titus transforms himself.

“He’s all business,” said Duong, who has moved up with Titus at Costa Mesa, playing frosh/soph for a year, then junior varsity, and varsity the last two years. “When it’s time to go, he knows it’s time to go.”

Then it’s time to see who can keep up with the quick shooting guard. Duong can at times, matching Titus’ stroke. Last Friday, though, Titus met someone who could outdo him and let him know about it with faces and taunts.

But could Titus hang in the league game?

One leg gave out to cramps trying to guard Laguna Beach star Cheyne Martin. At the time of the cramping with 2:30 left in the third quarter, Martin had already torched Titus for 29 points, one point below his season average.

On his back, grimacing near the baseline, and hands covering his face, Titus appeared like a boxer figuring whether he should get up. There really wasn’t any choice.

Titus rose, well, staggered up with the aid of the trainer. Play resumed and Titus, on his back again behind the team bench, watched Martin. That same smile Martin gave Titus after every basket earlier grew larger.

Wanting back in, and with McDaniel asking the trainer practically every possession if Titus could return, forced Titus to gain inspiration. He found it through his father.

Following Abtain’s workmanlike approach is something Titus tries to do constantly.

“He has like the same [problem], too,” said Titus of his father cramping. “He cramps up when he works. I just learned how he fights through it. I just do the same thing.”

But the father fixes cars and Titus plays basketball. Then again, at the time Costa Mesa was in urgent need of a fix.

Titus returned and started the fourth, finding himself 2 1/2 minutes later right back on his back. Martin couldn’t help but grin.

McDaniel figured Titus would be heard from again. He has all year when it has counted, especially when he drained nine three-pointers in a game at a Santa Barbara tournament, leading the team back from a 19-point deficit and to a win.

“He makes the big play. You can’t teach that,” said the first-year coach. “Whenever the game is close at the end, he always ends up having a breakaway layup, making a steal for us, or hitting a big three.”

Titus didn’t disappoint late against Laguna Beach. He knocked off the Breakers, swishing the game winner, a three-pointer, his fifth, allowing the Mustangs to celebrate on top of him.

All Titus wanted to do is walk again as his left leg cramped up.

“It was not a good time,” said Titus, who finished with 21 points on eight-for-13 shooting. “It was pretty fun, but it was really hard going against [Martin]. I heard about his arm [getting broken Monday.] That sucks. I was like, ‘Oh man!’

“I want to play him again. I don’t even know why he broke his arm. Maybe he was scared to play us again.”

Titus knows the feeling. Being thousands of miles away from home in the Marshall Islands made him feel that way as an 8-year-old, but Titus is all grown up now. He feels right at home.

MOSES TITUS

Hometown: Costa Mesa

Born: May 24, 1988

Height: 5-foot-10

Weight: 160 pounds

Sport: Basketball

Position: Shooting guard

Coach: Jeff McDaniel

Favorite food: Orange chicken

Favorite movie: “Stomp the Yard”

Favorite athletic moment: Making nine three-pointers and leading the Mustangs back from a 19-point deficit to a win at a Santa Barbara tournament in December.

Week in review: Hit five three-pointers in a game twice. The first came in a 60-56 nonleague win against Laguna Hills. Titus’ fifth three-pointer was the game-winner in a 59-58 Orange Coast League win against Laguna Beach.