Standout female athlete Finley Garnett leaves Estancia, transfers to Edison

The look on Coach Judd Fryslie’s face was one of dejection when he talked about his Estancia High girls’ basketball team Tuesday night during a girls’ volleyball match between rivals in the Eagles’ gym.

Fryslie can’t be too thrilled when he thinks of his team because he has lost standout Finley Garnett. The junior three-sport athlete recently transferred to Edison. She is competing for the Chargers’ girls’ volleyball team. She will also play basketball and plans to compete in the high jump in track and field in the spring instead of swimming, which is what she did at Estancia.

Garnett was a first-team All-Orange Coast League forward and also named to the Daily Pilot Girls’ Basketball Dream Team for the second straight season as a sophomore last year.

She averaged a team-best 11.4 points per game and 3.5 rebounds per game, as well as two steals. In Orange Coast League play, she increased her scoring total to 16.9 points per contest.

“I was really shocked,” Fryslie said of his reaction when he found out during the summer that Garnett would transfer to Edison. “I really did not expect that, especially with the history we had here with her sister [Slade, who graduated from Estancia in the spring]. We worked with her family and all that. It’s unfortunate.”

Fryslie said he understood Garnett’s transfer and wished her well, saying, “she’s a good girl.”

Garnett is an outside hitter for the Edison girls’ volleyball team, as she joined the team Oct. 3 after her sit-out period. She won’t be eligible to play on the girls’ basketball team until Jan. 2 after her sit-out period, said Thom Simmons, director of communication for the CIF Southern Section.

Garnett’s mother, Kelly, spoke frankly when giving the reason for the transfer.

“The competition is stiffer [at Edison and the teams it plays against] and we need that for her,” Kelly Garnett said. “It was a family decision and we want her to prove her abilities to get into a college.”

Garnett has three older siblings, including Slade, who is on a religious mission, who attend Brigham Young.

The family is originally from Texas, and moved to Orange County in 2012. Another reason for Finley Garnett’s transfer is because her younger brother, Aiden, also attends Edison. He is a sophomore who plays on the basketball team.

Finley Garnett is the sixth of seven children in the Garnett family.

“We just simplified our family,” Kelly Garnett said of her daughter’s transfer to Edison. “She loved her experience at Estancia and loved her coaches, Judd and [former coach] Xavi [Castellano].”