Athlete of the Week: Anderson gains confidence with loss

The Corona del Mar High girls’ basketball team is used to pounding the ball in to 6-foot-2 senior center Krista Anderson.

For Anderson, though, it’s been losing the pounds that has made a difference in her fourth and final year on varsity. She said she has lost 50 pounds since October.

The secret? Like most things in life, there hasn’t been a shortcut. Anderson is watching what she eats and exercising more.

At least five times a week she eats a meal with kale, quinoa and chicken breast. To spice it up a bit, she adds Sriracha sauce.

Then there’s the increased exercise. On top of basketball practice, she now goes to the gym three or four more times a week. Anderson said her friend Erin Lundy, who’s also a CdM senior, helps to push her.

“It feels great,” said Anderson, who still wants to lose 25 more pounds. “I needed to find a good balance of healthiness in my life. I tried to do it a little bit over summer and it was harder. Then when school started, I really wanted to have to do it and make the change.”

Anderson is slimmer, but her stat line isn’t for CdM (23-7). She’s averaging nine points and eight rebounds per game, second on CdM to her good friend, UC Santa Barbara-bound Natalia Bruening.

Anderson has been playing with Bruening and senior point guard Kelly Tam for years, but she knows that period is coming to a close. However, she helped extend it last week.

The Sea Kings experienced heartbreak on the road at La Cañada, falling, 55-52, in the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 3A playoffs. They lost on a buzzer-beating three-pointer, and even if replays showed that Kristina Kurdoghlian’s shot may have come a split-second late, nothing could be done.

“We did everything we could,” said Anderson, the Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week. “We played really hard. We worked our butts off. They had a 14-point lead [in the fourth quarter] and we worked so hard to get it back.”

It was the third straight CIF semifinal setback for CdM, and yet it was strong play by Anderson that even helped CdM make it that far. It paid off when the Sea Kings found out that they will receive an at-large berth to the CIF State Southern California Regional Playoffs, also for the third straight year. This time they’re in Division 4; the brackets will be released Sunday night.

The La Cañada loss certainly wasn’t due to lack of effort from Anderson. She had eight points, seven rebounds and two blocks. It was her put-back with 1:15 remaining in the game that pulled CdM within two points and ultimately fouled out La Cañada senior Amber Graves.

More than the statistics, though, it was the defensive effort that she and Bruening showed on La Cañada’s post players, Zoe Williams and Graves. They came into the game virtually sharing the team lead in scoring, both with more than 11 per game. While Kurdoghlian and her senior cousin Sarah Kurdoghlian, both guards, came alive to combine for 32 points, CdM held Williams and Graves to six and five points, respectively.

“We killed them,” CdM Coach Mark Decker said. “Head to head, [Bruening and Anderson] dominated the other two. I don’t know anybody out there that has two post players like we do ... We were in our zone for the first three quarters. Krista was down on the low post most of the time, and Natalia guarded the high post when they tried to do their high-low. That’s their primary offense, and [Anderson] basically shut down the bottom part of it. That wasn’t what hurt us.”

Decker would like to meet La Cañada again in the regional playoffs, and said if it happens he would probably play the Spartans more straight up since Anderson and Bruening did such a great job defensively. Still, Anderson knows that individual accolades mean little without team success. That’s part of the reason why she doesn’t mind playing up top in CdM’s press-break offense. She sacrifices numbers on offense by doing so, since catching the inbound pass typically doesn’t really put her in a position to score.

Yet, that is what she must do for the Sea Kings, and she does it without a complaint.

“There’s some passes that are thrown to Krista especially that you think there’s no way she’s going to catch that, and she does,” Decker said. “She’s got good hands, she makes great decisions, and she can make a good outlet pass too.”

She is a complete player, which makes her attractive to college programs. Anderson said she would like to continue her career at Chapman University.

“I’ve been talking to the coach and everything,” she said. “I’m just waiting to hear back from admissions. That’s definitely a possibility. Even if not, I want to do intramural basketball.”

Anderson will continue to strive to get better. She has been consistent for most of the season after capturing tournament MVP honors at the CdM Tip-Off Tournament.

A rare bad game happened in the Battle of the Bay against rival Newport Harbor, but even that turned into a net positive.

“She was really frustrated with herself,” Decker said. “She came to me and said, ‘What can I do better?’ She came in and we watched a lot of film. She wasn’t defensive ... It’s hard for teenage girls, basketball players, athletes in general to look at yourself and get some constructive criticism. She’s been great as far as that. Then in the next game at Woodbridge, she had her best game of the year [with 18 points and 11 rebounds in CdM’s 50-45 win].”

That’s the character of Anderson. Just when someone may doubt her, or she may doubt herself, she comes back strong.

As it turns out, success tastes good.

Even better than kale.

“I think it’s been way better this year,” Anderson said. “It’s easier to run and move more. I feel like I’m more confident on the court.”

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Krista Anderson

Born: Oct. 29, 1997

Hometown: Newport Beach

Height: 6-foot-2

Sport: Basketball

Year: Senior

Coach: Mark Decker

Favorite food: Thai food

Favorite movie: “The Great Gatsby”

Favorite athletic moment: Helping CdM win its second straight CdM Tip-Off Tournament and being named tournament MVP.

Week in review: Anderson had eight points, seven rebounds and two blocks in CdM’s 55-52 CIF-SS Division 3A semifinal loss at La Cañada, and stood out defensively.