ENGER FINDS LOOKS ARE DECEIVING : Vista Star Not Just Another Tall Center

As a third-grader, Chris Enger didn’t like basketball. Although she was the tallest in her class, she simply did not want to play the game.

“Mom said that I was going to play,” Enger said. “I said, ‘No, I am not.’ So I played. She said, ‘If you like it, you can stay,’ and I loved it, so here I am today.”

Today, Enger is a 6-foot 4-inch, 135-pound junior center for the third-ranked Vista High School girls’ basketball team. She is San Diego County’s leading scorer with an average of 27.1 points per game. She is the tallest in a county where a majority of teams don’t have players taller than 5-11.

Enger, 16, was an all-county player last season and is among the county’s best three or four girls this season.

What is immediately noticeable is Enger’s frail but coordinated body. It is that deception that is most intriguing.

“She really surprises a lot of people when they see her play,” said Joe DeMaria, Vista coach. “She looks tall and gangly, but she’s not just a good tall kid, she’s a good athlete.”

DeMaria first saw Enger when she was in seventh grade playing in a parks-and-recreation basketball league.

“She was a very talented player even then,” he said. “Even when she was in seventh grade, she was coordinated and a good ballhandler for her height. When I first got over the fact that she was so thin and saw her play, I knew she was going to be a real talented player.”

Enger continually shows it.

Three times in Tuesday night’s 63-37 victory over fifth-ranked Mt. Carmel, Enger sprinted the length of the court to break up a fast break. Enger had 18 points, 14 rebounds and 12 blocks against Mt. Carmel’s 6-2 senior center, Lynda Jones, who was also an all-county player last season. In the first half, Enger was double teamed. Jones played behind here, and a guard played between her and the ball, with both hands in her face.

“She has improved a lot,” said Jones, who has played against Enger for three years. “She gets up and down the floor a lot quicker. Offensively, she used to just get the lob and shoot it; now she’s taking the outside shot or driving. She posts up a lot better too, I noticed that .”

Enger’s height is still her biggest advantage, but what makes her most dangerous is her overall game.

“Most people will probably say her height is her best asset,” point guard Kelli Schott said. “I know a lot of tall players that aren’t nearly as good as Chris is. It’s her coordination and her speed. She’s really fast, she can dribble, she can shoot, she can rebound, she can do everything. If she wasn’t so tall, she’d probably be playing a guard. She’s the best dribbler on the team.”

Lee Trepanier, who has coached the Point Loma girls’ team to four consecutive state titles, thinks Enger’s forte is blocking shots.

“She’s probably the best shot blocker San Diego has ever had, bar none,” he said. “She’s just smart. She knows how to get her body into set position. Where Chris has an advantage is, she blocks from the top up. I saw her in the Blue Star Camp (last summer at Pepperdine) block seven shots one time down the court. Seven different shots, and she ended up with the last one herself, feeding it off for a run down the other end.”

Said Enger: “It’s fun to snuff them, and they feel really bad. I like that better than scoring, actually.”

As she has improved, her role in the offense has increased.

“Why should we pull up and take a 10-foot jump shot when nobody can stop her in the paint?” DeMaria said. “Chris will improve when her competition gets better. We haven’t really been able to find anybody to really guard her man-to-man.”

Her statistics show her inside dominance. Her scoring average is 3.0 points per game better than the next closest scorer. She averages 12.8 rebounds and 9.5 blocks and blocked 17 shots against Helix earlier this season.

The numbers amplify comparisons with former Point Loma All-American Terri Mann, who led the Pointers to four consecutive state titles and has 11 San Diego County and 2 national records. But it is not a fair comparison.

“I’ve heard people say, ‘Hey, you are supposed to be the next Terri Mann,’ ” Enger said. “But we are total opposites. She is more of a dominating inside player, and I am more of a finesse player. I’m going to get more of my points on the fast break, and she got hers on the inside.

“I don’t want to be the next Terri Mann, I want to be the first Chris Enger. She was a great player; I guess it should be good that people think I compare with her. I don’t think I do.

“Terri could always physically move people out of the way. I learned from Terri to be more aggressive. She was a lot more physical, and she could dominate the inside game better than I can. The first game I played against her, I was sort of in awe. The second game, I said ‘OK, I’m going to play as good as her,’ and I did. I scored two points more than she did.”

Last season, she helped Vista to a 26-3 record, and the Panthers were the San Diego Section 3-A runners-up. All three losses were to Point Loma.

This season, Vista is 13-4, the four losses evidence that Enger is not a one-girl team. Starters Schott, Dana Christofferson and reserve Renee Richardson missed six games during the holiday break playing in a softball tournament in New Zealand. Starting forward Julianna Yasinski also missed a number of games during the break when she was visiting East Coast colleges. With those players absent, the team lost four times.

“The first game (without the starters), against Poway, that’s the most fired up I’ve been this season,” Enger said. “I went out there and played the best game I’ve played in a long time. That emotionally drained me when we lost (in overtime).

“It’s not only me,” she said. “There’s always somebody who is going to fill in, whether it is Kelli with an assist or Dana driving to the basket or Rissa (Cuyno) with her great defense or Julianna with her rebounding. Everybody contributes. I don’t really look at it as I’m way up here, and they are down there.”

Vista is 11-0 with its complete roster.

“I knew all along that once we got our starters back, we would be one of the top teams in the county,” DeMaria said.

“We have some other talented girls on the team. I think they work very well as a unit, and all their games have improved because they have been working with and playing girls who have talent. If Chris was playing with a group of girls who didn’t have very much talent, I don’t think her game would have been able to improve as much as it has the last couple of years.”

With the improvement has come thoughts of a college scholarship. DeMaria says he has received inquiries from 35 to 40 colleges. Enger also has a 3.6 grade point average in mostly honors classes.

She has played volleyball for three years and is considering trying out for the track-and-field team as a high jumper. But basketball is where Enger excels.

Torrey Pines Coach Ken Baumann saw the Poway game in which Vista played short-handed.

“I thought to myself, ‘This is a fine basketball player,’ ” he said. “She’s unselfish, she gives the ball up, she shoots, she never shows emotion. She is everything you want in a player. Where’s the weakness? She is just beautiful to watch.”