High School Female Athlete of the Week: Huntington Beach’s Andie Payne plays through pain, produces
The Huntington Beach High girls’ basketball team has been one of the most consistent programs around.
Player development through the Huntington Beach Wave, the team’s feeder program, allows the Oilers to tread water when the injury bug bites.
Still, the production of some players is more difficult to replace than others. For the Oilers, junior center Andie Payne is one of those players.
“The athleticism and talent makes us all look better as coaches,” Oilers coach Russell McClurg said. “I know that. Andie came as a freshman with some experience in basketball, but not high experience in basketball.
“She has the type of body and the athleticism that I feel that she can play at the next level. She works super hard, and she is very humble.”
Payne said she has suffered a couple of right ankle injuries this season, but the Oilers would rather take the court with her in the lineup, even if her minutes are limited and her performance compromised.
McClurg could see right away upon her initial return that the vertical game of the six-foot center had taken a hit. When Payne reaggravated the injury in the first game of the Nike Tournament of Champions in Phoenix, Ariz., he thought that she would be done for the week.
After visiting the trainer, Payne was cleared to play on a limited basis. The next day, she played 16 minutes, but was able to put up a team-high 17 points in a 55-47 win over Concord Carondelet.
Payne came back with a full line against Phoenix Desert Vista. She amassed 11 points, six steals and five rebounds in a 34-21 win.
Huntington Beach lost to Los Angeles Marlborough 29-25 in the championship game. The scores are deceptively low, as the tournament was played without a shot clock.
For the tournament, Payne averaged 11.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.3 blocked shots and 2.3 steals per game.
Payne said that she still manages to play defense effectively without fouling.
“It’s all timing,” Payne said. “I’ve learned to really time it. I guess I just watch their hands, how many steps they’re taking, and that’s just kind of intuition.”
As the Oilers got deeper into the Nike Tournament of Champions, McClurg began to see scouts take notice when Payne was involved in the action.
The sight brought back memories of the recruitment of Kelsey Minato, who was approached by Army at the same tournament. At West Point, she was the first in Patriot League history to receive the Player and Rookie of the Year honors in the same season.
Minato, a four-year letter winner and former starting point guard for Huntington Beach, led Orange County in scoring with an average of 20.8 points per game as a senior during the 2011-12 season.
“It was really neat to see her get noticed,” McClurg said of Payne. “That’s what we do. We facilitate it. I always tell people, ‘I can’t help her get a scholarship, but I can help facilitate it by playing in one of the best tournaments in America, if not the best tournament in America.’
“It gives us an opportunity. [Junior shooting guard] Alyssa [Real] and Andie, I think those kids have an opportunity to be seen, and now it’s up to them.”
Payne is in her first season as a captain for the Oilers (8-4). While she may be intimidating as a shot blocker, she has one of the softer voices on the team. She tends to tell teammates to “brush off” their mistakes and move on.
More prominent in her leadership skills is her desire to bring the team together. She believes that a concerted effort toward forming team chemistry each year has been vital to Huntington Beach’s sustained success over the years.
On the Oilers’ recent trip to Arizona, the team saw the star-studded “Knives Out” movie in theaters. Payne also had the idea to get her teammates together to play the Mafia party game.
If anyone wanted further confirmation of Payne being a team player, just ask her neighbors about her Halloween costume. Payne and her friend, Sophia Zamune, suited up together to form a cowgirl riding a horse.
“Her feet were the front two hooves, and my feet were the back two hooves,” Payne said. “Then my upper body was the cowgirl, and it looked like I was riding a horse.”
Payne does not consider herself to be a particularly competitive person, but if the activity is worth her time, she will give it all she has.
She prefers to view her prevailing characteristic as optimism, a quality she says she gets from her mother, Lorie. It would not seem to be too bold to think that her goal for the rest of her high school career could come true. After coming in first place in the initial year of the Surf League, Payne would like to go out with three in a row.
“For my high school career in total, I think three league championship titles would be great,” Payne said.
Andie Payne
Born: Jan. 31, 2003
Hometown: Menifee
Height: 6 feet
Weight: 165 pounds
Sport: Basketball
Year: Junior
Coach: Russell McClurg
Favorite movie: “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”
Favorite athletic moment: The Oilers won the inaugural Surf League title last season, unseating Los Alamitos as the defending league champion.
Week in review: Payne averaged 11.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and 2.3 steals per game in helping Huntington Beach advance to the championship game of the Nike Tournament of Champions in Arizona.
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