Daily Pilot High School Female Athlete of the Week: CdM builds around another Bruening

It is a good feeling to be comfortable in one’s own skin.

Corona del Mar High’s Tatiana Bruening has fully embraced who she is.

Born to two parents who played basketball in Germany, Bruening reckons that she never had a choice about playing the sport. It was simply a matter of learning to like it along the way.

“I always remember basketball being part of my life because both of my parents [Christoph and Julia] played,” Bruening said. “Since I was 1, I remember having a ball in my hand, like a Little Tikes hoop.

“It’s always been there. I was just kind of born into it.”

If that were not enough pressure, then there was the fact that her sister, Natalia, was a standout at CdM at the same time she had entered the school. Natalia was a three-time Daily Pilot Girls’ Basketball Dream Team Player of the Year, sharing the honor with Estancia’s Celia Duran as a sophomore for the 2013-14 season.

Natalia now plays at UC Santa Barbara.

It never occurred to Bruening, a 6-foot-2 junior center, to wilt under the expectations. She has stayed true to herself, engaging in a handful of activities at school and elsewhere. She has tried her hand at filmmaking and modeling, while also staying involved on campus in ASB.

“There are some days that I wish humans didn’t have to sleep so I could just keep working,” Bruening said. “I love what I do so much that it doesn’t feel like work.”

Bruening stays busy, and that is what keeps her happy.

“My mindset is that I like to try everything once,” Bruening said. “I don’t always finish the project or finish the job, but I like to spread myself out a lot and become skilled in a lot of things.”

In spite of having as many commitments as she already has on her plate, there are some that wish a flirtation with the high jump in track and field in her sophomore year would go beyond experimentation. Sea Kings girls’ basketball coach Brason Alexander recalls a time when it was the norm to play multiple sports, and he encourages his athletes to do the same.

In Bruening’s case, he believes that participating in other sports added to her explosiveness as a rebounder.

“I hope she jumps,” Alexander said. “We encourage that as a staff. We’ve got lacrosse players. We’ve got softball players. I think it was good for her to get a break mentally, and also to learn the techniques of jumping. I think it has helped her this year.

“She has really shocked me how she is rebounding out of her area. I attribute that sometimes to other sports. We want her to jump, and she can manage both.”

Bruening leapt to a personal best of 4 feet, 8 inches in a frosh-soph level dual meet against Beckman last April.

Another facet of Bruening’s development is the simple matter of coming of age. When team leaders like her sister and Kelly Tam graduated at the end of the 2015-16 school year, it was a very young team that remained in place.

Bruening and junior guard Samantha Uehara have been on varsity since they were freshmen, but they had to grow up almost too fast.

“My second year, we didn’t have [Natalia Bruening and Kelly Tam],” Uehara said of their growing pains as veterans on the team. “I had to step up. Tati had to step up. All the sophomores, pretty much, had to step up, because those were the older people on last year’s team.

“Since we learned so much from last year, we’re already kind of there. We’re still learning, but we’re getting better.”

The 2016-17 Sea Kings went 4-21. This season, the team is 9-12 overall and 4-2 in the Pacific Coast League. CdM is challenging for one of the league’s three playoff berths, a surprise given the struggles of the previous season.

Last week, CdM went 3-1. Bruening led the charge, averaging 20.3 points, 14.3 rebounds and 5.3 blocked shots in CdM’s three wins against Northwood, Irvine and Newport Harbor. She had 18 points and 16 rebounds in the Sea Kings’ 54-39 win at rival Newport Harbor in the Battle of the Bay last Saturday.

Beyond the numbers, Bruening has proven to be the sort of lightning rod a team can rally around. Alexander says she is not the only one to possess such a quality, but when Bruening does get fired up, the rest of the team follows suit.

“Our team gets really excited when we see her get just a little fiery,” Alexander said. “We don’t want her to get into any kind of trouble, which she never will, but our team, we gravitate to that kind of energy.

“Any time your best player shows that extra energy, obviously, it sets a tone. It’s always nice when your so-called best player says, ‘I’m going to set the bar.’”

Increased competitiveness within games has added to the visibility of the girls’ basketball program on campus. Combined with the efforts of the Kings Krew, which was a movement created to get more students supporting the school’s sports teams, Bruening says she appreciates the recognition.

“We’ve had a lot of publicity and a lot of support from everyone around here, especially my teachers,” she said. “It was super cool to have all of these people who you wouldn’t expect to come out to your games. It’s a lot of fun.”

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Tatiana Bruening

Born: March 26, 2001

Hometown: Newport Beach

Height: 6 foot 2

Weight: 145 pounds

Sport: Basketball

Year: Junior

Coach: Brason Alexander

Favorite food: Boba

Favorite movie: “Talladega Nights”

Favorite athletic moment: Touching the rim for the first time in September.

Week in review: Bruening averaged 20.3 points, 14.3 rebounds and 5.3 blocks in CdM’s three wins over Northwood, Irvine and Newport Harbor last week.

andrew.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @ProfessorTurner