The Kaatz Meow

Mike Sciacca, Independent

Dustin Kaatz, a key figure in Marina High’s drive to its first

Sunset League title in eight years, has been named the league’s Most

Valuable Player for boys basketball.

Kaatz wrapped up his varsity career at Marina by averaging 23 points,

10.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game during a season in which the

Vikings went 24-4 overall, reached the second round of the CIF Southern

Section Division I-A playoffs, and recorded the school’s second-best

winning percentage (85-percent) in a single season in 31 years.

The 6-foot-5 senior left his mark in the Marina record book, too,

finishing with the fourth best single season scoring average (23.5;

Cherokee Parks tops Marina with a 28.1 average, set in 1991), , has two of the top five single game scoring marks (38 and 31 points, set in 1999), and has the seventh-most rebounds in a game (20, set in 1998).

Kaatz heads a First Team comprised of six other players, including Marina

junior guard Beau Brown, who averaged 13.5 points and three assists per

game. Brown also hit 76 three-point shots during the season, just one shy

of the school’s all-time record, but good enough to rank among the Top 10

players in the county.

Other First Team members included Ryan Keller, Ron Prettyman, and Jeff

Grgas of Los Alamitos, and Doug Brown and Lloyd Walls of Esperanza.

Local players named Second Team included senior guard Ryan Redmond of

Marina, senior guard Mike Allen and senior guard/forward Matt Sanders of

Huntington Beach, senior center Steve Henderson of Edison, and senior

forward Brendan Cotter and and senior guard Salman Syed of Fountain

Valley.

Marina junior Chris DeLuca earned Honorable Mention.