Potential is finally meeting expectations for the Santa Fe Preparatory boys basketball team.

It's been a four-year wait for Blue Griffins senior post Dan Van Essen, and he's not about to let the moment slip past him. Ever since he started playing for the varsity as a freshman, Prep has been long on potential and short on meeting expectations.

Finally, the two have merged into results, and Saturday night was another step in the maturation of the Blue Griffins.

Van Essen wore out the Monte del Sol Dragons for 23 points and 15 rebounds to pace Prep to an 82-56 District 2AA win in Prep Gymnasium. It was the kind of game that used to trap the Blue Griffins into a false sense of security. The result usually was an unsettling loss, and it paved the way to missing the goal of a Class AA State Tournament berth.

It has been 17 years since Prep (17-4 overall, 3-1 2AA) reached March, but Van Essen and his fellow seniors (which number three) want to put a "2012" next to "1995."

"We take a lot of pride," Van Essen said. "We want to put our school on the map. We want to do well for our school and take pride in that."

Pride was needed with the scrappy and undersized Dragons, who erased a 23-15 deficit in the span of 2 minutes of the second quarter. A 10-2 run keyed by 3-pointers from Rico Gallegos and Antonio Tapia made it 25-all with 4:53 left and conjured images of another tough district loss that would put a dent in the Blue Griffins' postseason hopes.

"This is a tough district," Prep head coach Dennis Casados said. "I said this two weeks ago, you got to come to play every week in this district or you're going to get left behind."

Van Essen heeded those words -- not that he needed to hear them.

"As a program we've been through everything," Van Essen said. "We've lost to bad teams that we should have beaten. We've given up leads and all that. It's really important that we need to keep on playing."

The big men for the Blue Griffins did just that. Van Essen, junior Tex Witter and sophomore Will Lenfestey marked their territory against a Monte del Sol team that had nobody taller than 5-foot-11 to go against the 6-5 Van Essen, the 6-6 Witter and the 6-3 Lenfestey.

Dragons head coach Lucy Lindley said her team lacks the mentality to do the dirty work inside.

"They've never been taught to hit or get hit," Lindley said. "Rebounding is passion. It takes no effort. Look at [former NBA player] Dennis Rodman. He made 50 million dollars because he wanted to go rebound. So we just got to find guys who will rebound."

Witter and Van Essen scored Prep's next six points to forge a 31-25 lead. Their presence in the paint caused the Dragons (5-17, 0-4) to miss six of their last seven shots. When Van Essen scored off the glass from the right side of the block, it was 37-26 with 1:51 left in the half.

The dagger, though, was supplied by senior guard Joey Lambert, whose 3 at the end of the half hit the front of the rim and dropped in for a 42-30 lead.

"We told the guys, 'You're not going to win anything on the offensive side, you have to do it defensively,'" Casados said. "We came out and turned up the defensive intensity and got some easy buckets by pounding it in underneath."

The pounding continued during a 13-2 run that settled the matter in the third quarter. Van Essen scored the last eight points of that spurt with three layups and a putback and it was 59-36 with 2:00 left in the quarter.

"When my guards get it in to me, they make really good passes so I just have to go straight up and I am wide open," Van Essen said. "The guards really helped me out down there. It felt good."

Still, it's just one more step to the ultimate goal. On Tuesday, the Blue Griffins start the second half of the district schedule at Peñasco. Mora, the 2AA leader, comes to Santa Fe on Friday with the district lead possibly on the line.

The next step is easy.

"Were not worried about Mora," Casados said. "We got to go to Peñasco, and we take it one game at a time. Peñasco is the next formidable opponent and we better be ready."

Expectations have to be met.

Van Essen knows that all too well.

Contact James Barron at 986-3045 or jbarron@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at thereadbarron.com.