Girls’ Basketball: Bruening stays busy
Natalia Bruening always seems to be on the court. You will find her playing volleyball or basketball.
The two sports consume Bruening’s life. She plays both sports at Corona del Mar High, girls’ volleyball in the fall and girls’ basketball in the winter.
As for an offseason in either sport, there isn’t one for Bruening. She also competes in volleyball and basketball on the club level.
In a day and age where high school athletes specialize in one sport, Bruening is an exception. She’s a standout in two sports, and she definitely does stand out at 6-foot-4. Bruening, a junior, is usually the tallest athlete on the court and usually one of the best.
The transition from sports can be rough for anyone. Try going from volleyball to basketball, sports that involve a lot of jumping and wear and tear on your knees.
This is Bruening’s third season making the switch from volleyball to basketball, and she has become used to it. The basketball season began last week, two weeks after Bruening helped the CdM volleyball team reach the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 1AA playoffs.
The volleyball team isn’t the first at CdM Bruening has lifted to the semifinals. In March, she led the school’s basketball team to its first semifinal appearance since the 1982-83 season.
The basketball season is only a couple of weeks old for CdM, yet Bruening and the Sea Kings hope to make a deeper run in the CIF Southern Section Division 3AA playoffs this season. Bruening is one of four returning starters back at CdM. The others are Krista Anderson, Kelly Tam and Maria King.
The experience has keyed the Sea Kings’ hot start to the season. They began the first week in December undefeated by claiming their own tournament, the CdM Tip-Off Classic.
Bruening turned in her best performance in the championship game. She finished with 22 points, 11 rebounds and five block shots in the Sea Kings’ 69-46 win against Westminster at Northwood High.
The Sea Kings won their tournament for the first time in six seasons, and in blowout fashion. They won by an average of almost 30 points per game, beating the likes of Dana Hills, Mission Viejo, Tustin and Westminster.
During CdM’s four games last week, Bruening averaged 19.2 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, earning her the tournament MVP award. Without much practice, Bruening has regained her dominant form from last season, when she averaged 14.5 points, 12 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game.
Bruening credits the early success to her playing club basketball for the first time while in high school. During the summer, she played for the West Coast Premier Basketball Academy’s under-17 black team, which works out at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut.
Bruening comes from a family with strong basketball ties. Her mother, Julia, who’s 6-3, played at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps College and then professionally in Germany, where Bruening’s father, Christoph, coached Julia.
Julia is always at her daughter’s games. Julia not only follows Bruening, but also the rest of the players on the basketball team because she keeps CdM’s stats. Bruening has learned how to play in the post from her mother, as well as from her dad. Bruening said Christoph tells her that her right-handed hook and mid-range game is similar to that of her mom’s.
Julia, a member of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athletics Wall of Fame as a basketball and volleyball player, chose basketball after college. As for which sport her daughter will pursue after high school, that’s still up in the air.
“I like them both equally,” Bruening said of volleyball and basketball.
“My mom would probably tell you that I’m better at basketball.”
Mark Decker, Bruening’s basketball coach at CdM, believes Bruening will have an opportunity to play basketball or volleyball on the next level. He said a couple of Pac-12 Conference women’s volleyball programs are recruiting Bruening, and in women’s basketball, there are a couple of Big West Conference programs, along with the University of San Diego and Kansas State interested.
Each of Bruening’s coaches at CdM, including Steve Astor, the school’s volleyball coach, and Charlie Brande, her coach with the Orange County Volleyball Club’s under-18 team, are supportive of her playing two sports all year round. The CdM basketball team isn’t the only team Bruening is a member of right now. The club volleyball season started this month, and Bruening is practicing three to four times a week for her first tournament in January.
“It’s [a] busy [schedule], but luckily for me the [high school] volleyball season [in the fall] is on its own,” said Bruening, who also finds time to succeed in the classroom, producing a weighted 4.17 grade-point average. “Coach Decker and Coach Brande do a really good job of working out the schedules [during the winter] and making sure that there are little to no conflicts for me, so that I don’t miss out on really anything.
“It can be [taxing] near the end of the season, when we [start] preparing for the national [club volleyball] tournament at the end of July. It’s a long season from December to July [because club basketball also runs from March to August].”
From now until then, you will know where to find Bruening, on a court, sometimes on two different ones on the same day.
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Natalia Bruening
Born: Nov. 14, 1997
Hometown: Newport Beach
Height: 6-foot-4
Sport: Basketball
Year: Junior
Coach: Mark Decker
Favorite food: Anything from Chipotle
Favorite movie: “Forrest Gump”
Favorite athletic moment: Sea Kings upsetting No. 3-seeded San Juan Hills, 38-37, in the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 3AA playoffs last year.
Week in review: Bruening finished with 22 points, 11 rebounds and five blocks, leading the Sea Kings past Westminster, 69-46, in the CdM Tip-Off Classic championship game. She averaged 19.2 points and 8.5 rebounds during the four-game tournament.