DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:

Before Joe Eberhard revealed the new Joe Eberhard, a mask stopped him from doing so.

This mask wasn’t to hide his identity from the Corona del Mar High boys’ basketball team like some comic book superhero.

It was to protect Eberhard’s nose. As clear as the mask was, so was the fact that his nose was broken.

The only cover-up, making sure his mother, Tanya, believed he wore the mask on the court. Every time Tanya checked with Coach Ryan Schachter this summer, Schachter gave the phone to Eberhard.

“She’d always call me, ‘Did Joe wear his mask?’ ” Schachter said. “He used to tell me, ‘Yeah, yeah, tell her!’ I would tell her, ‘I don’t know. You have to talk to Joe about that.’

“I know mom wasn’t too happy about him not wearing the mask.”

Eberhard got away with it, never once getting his nose in a jam since breaking it during an AAU practice in March. Only afterward, when he had to face his mom one-on-one at home and listen to her concerns.

“She was on me,” he said. “You know how moms are.”

She made sense. Surgery wasn’t until August. Still, he ignored her.

But without the mask Eberhard’s game soared in the summer. Unmasked, the 6-foot-6 small forward emerged as fast as Spider-Man arriving on a scene needing his assistance.

As for Eberhard, his calling on the court was to shoot more. He’s following through in his senior year by averaging 15.8 points per game, up almost six points from last year, to go with 7.4 rebounds.

CdM is reaping the benefits as it is 14-5 and 3-0 in the Pacific Coast League, a vast majority of those wins against stout competition. Eberhard showed last week in three wins that with him, and a deep team, the Sea Kings are in the process of making their second straight league and CIF Southern Section Division III-A title runs.

Credit can go to Eberhard not wearing that mask. He’s a different player, a fearless one, evident from the career-high 35 points he dropped on Laguna Hills in a 68-53 win Friday and the team-high 13 points the following night in a 47-32 victory at rival Newport Harbor.

“I’m a lot more aggressive,” Eberhard said. “I was just kind of a little timid [with the mask]. I wasn’t really supposed to be playing without a mask. It was annoying because I wouldn’t be able to look around [as easily], it was tight. It was just an embarrassing thing, I thought. You don’t see too many high school kids wearing masks. No one from CdM ever really saw me wear it. These guys, I know they’d give me a lot [guff].”

Most of the key returning players, like 6-foot-9 senior center Stefan Kaluz, already had been on Eberhard’s case since last season.

“We’ve always been on Joe to shoot more,” said Kaluz, who’s headed for Brown University.

The team began harassing Eberhard again at the start of summer ball, not because of the crooked nose, but because of his passiveness.

Everyone knew Kaluz was the go-to-guy earning the Division III-A Player of the Year award after averaging 21 points, 12 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game last year. But the Sea Kings prodded Eberhard to attack, even with a deviated septum.

Early on, it got so bad that the coaching staff had enough during the first weekend of games.

“We told him, ‘If you don’t take 10 shots by halftime you’re not playing in the second half,’ ” Schachter said.

The Sea Kings began force feeding Eberhard. Kaluz actually helped the process by not being around as he was at AAU tournaments, giving Eberhard no excuses not to shoot.

“We starting playing good competition and then he started dominating, scoring 30 on Pasadena, 45 or something on Chino Hills, a very athletic team,” Schachter said. “I think the green light came on when he realized, ‘I can score on anybody.’

“He wants to play in college and we talked to him about what it would take for him to play at that college level. A Division I [program] to me is not out of the realm. I think he can play at that level. He’s got to develop that Division I mentality. As the season progresses I think his opportunities are going to open more.”

The way Eberhard sees it he’s playing on the next level next year. There’s no concealing his confidence, not even a mask.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at david.carrillo@latimes.com.