Prep Review : Trabuco Hills Coach Is No Stranger to High School Basketball Success

After its 70-68 upset of third-seeded Savanna in the Southern Section 3-A playoffs Friday night, Trabuco Hills boys’ basketball team is a much talked-about squad. The centerpiece of the team, of course, is 6-foot-10 center Rick Swanwick, who is averaging 20.6 points and 13.6 rebounds a game.

But how many remember that Trabuco Hills Coach Rainer Wulf was a much talked-about player himself--at Bishop Amat?

Wulf and his longtime friend, current Bishop Amat Coach Alex Acosta, were 25-points-per-game players for the Lancers in 1978 and all-Southern Section choices as seniors.

As it turns out, Wulf and Acosta, who attended kindergarten together in Monterey Park, were two of the hottest hot shots around when they were growing up.

Russ Boenker, Trabuco Hills assistant, can attest to it. Boenker coached Wulf and Acosta from 1972-75 on the Monterey Park Monarchs, an all-star traveling team of youths.

“Rainer and Alex played for me from their sixth to eighth grades,” Boenker said. “In the three years with them, we went 40-12, 58-8, and 64-19.”

According to Boenker, Acosta, who was 5-10 in the eighth grade, was the best grade school player in the state. Wulf, who was 5-2 in eighth grade, was a talented supporting player.

“We’d shoot at this gym from 10 in the morning until 10 at night,” Wulf said. “We had a good rivalry between us, though he was a much better player than I was--until I started to grow.”

By his senior year, Wulf had grown to 6-6, while Acosta had stopped growing at 6-1, and the two led Bishop Amat to the Southern Section quarterfinals.

“When I finally beat him (in one-on-one) basketball my senior year, it was kind of a milestone for me,” Wulf said.

After Bishop Amat, Wulf and Acosta joined forces at Citrus College, leading the school to the state playoffs their freshman year. At that time, Wulf became Citrus’ leading scorer, averaging 18 points a game. Acosta played point guard.

After two years at Citrus, the two went their separate ways. Acosta went to the University of Redlands and Wulf to UC Irvine. At Irvine, Wulf was a two-year starter at small forward, supporting All-American Kevin Magee.

Now in his second year as Trabuco Hills coach, Wulf has led the Mustangs to the Southern Section quarterfinals for the first time since the school opened in September of 1985. The Mustangs (19-6) will play Estancia (21-5) Wednesday at Corona del Mar High School.

Coincidentally, Acosta also has coached his team to the quarterfinals, though Bishop Amat plays in Division 4-A. Bishop Amat (16-9) will play Barstow (22-3) Wednesday.

If it were possible, would Wulf want to play Acosta’s team?

“Well, some day down the road maybe,” Wulf said. “It would be fun to look down at the end of the other bench and see your best friend . . . I wouldn’t mind meeting him this year as a matter of fact, having a 6-10 center.”

Add Wulf: Although few of the Trabuco Hills players know of Wulf’s background, Boenker said Wulf is still an impressive shooter.

“The kids don’t ask too much about (Wulf’s background), and we sort of keep it low key,” Boenker said. “They gotta know he was good once upon a time when they watch him in practice making six or eight shots in a row from the three-point line. Oh yeah, he can play basketball. He can definitely still play basketball.”

Dial D for Destiny: Marty Breen, the Mater Dei girls’ soccer coach, says he has “a team of destiny.” The Monarchs, second-seeded in the Southern Section 3-A, are having the best season in the school’s history.

The Monarchs, 20-4-2 overall, opened their season by placing second to Mission Viejo in the prestigious Ocean View tournament in December. According to Breen, the team suffered a bit of a slump in midseason, but is back in stride again.

“I’ve been coaching soccer since 1974, on every level,” Breen said. “And I have never had a team with such a consistency and such an energy level as this one. In the last four weeks, they’ve played with a higher intensity, a higher level, than they did at the (Ocean View) tournament. And, they’re playing smart soccer.”

Mater Dei will play host to Long Beach Wilson (17-4-1) in Wednesday’s second round. “The girls are really psyched up for this one,” Breen said. “Mater Dei has never advanced past the second round.”

Goalkeeper Michelle Lodyga, a four-year starter, sweeper Saule Sadunas and defender A.J. West lead Mater Dei’s tenacious defense. Friday, in a first-round match against Trabuco Hills, West was asked to guard Trabuco Hills’ Linda Lunceford, who has scored 25 goals this season.

Lunceford, who as a sophomore last year at Esperanza was a first-team all-Southern Section player, is one of the county’s leading scorers this season, with 25 goals. But, closely guarded by West, Lunceford did not score and managed only two shots on goal, according to Breen.

Perhaps West knows Lunceford’s moves. During the off-season, the two play on the same club team near Anaheim Hills.

Ouch! Sunny Hills goalkeeper Erica Gugler finished her high school soccer career in a painful way. Not only were the Lancers eliminated by La Quinta, 3-1, in Friday’s first round, but Gugler had to leave the game just 13 minutes into the first half after she dislocated her left shoulder while diving to stop a shot.

“I was diving to stop a pass-back from our center half,” Gugler said. “I dove and fell on my elbow, and the shoulder just popped out. I had the ball right in my hand and I tried to get it, but she (La Quinta forward Cheryl Jones) just went around me and scored. I was just down on the ground screaming.”

The injury isn’t uncommon for Gugler, who said she has had problems with loose knee and shoulder joints since she was in seventh grade.

“It’s an inherited disorder,” Gugler said. “My joints have popped out before. My knees have popped out a lot, my right shoulder popped out two days ago. I don’t know why, but my joints just seem to do that. Doctors say they’re too loose.”

Gugler, who said arthroscopic surgery on both knees three years ago did little to help her problem, relies on several hours of physical therapy a week to stabilize the muscles around the joints. Even so, she said Friday’s match was probably her last.

“No, no more soccer,” Gugler, a senior, said. “My body just can’t handle it.”

Add Sunny Hills: Gugler’s injury may have been almost as painful for Lancer Coach Kenn Gordon.

“I just wanted to die,” Gordon said. “We were playing so awesome.”

Replacing Gugler was a problem. The Lancers’ back-up goalie, Suzie Bruckman, graduated three weeks ago, at mid-term. Sunny Hills didn’t have a second backup.

“I looked around and looked at my sophomore all-Southern Section player (Shannan Brown),” Gordon said. “I says, ‘Nan, you’re going to play goalie. Go get a shirt and put it on.’ She just looks at me and says, ‘But I’ve never played goalie.’ And I said, ‘You’re the best athlete I have. Get in there, lady.’ ”

Brown played impressively, but allowed two of the three goals scored by Jones.

“Nan made 11 saves, she played an awesome game, just awesome,” Gordon said. “But it just wasn’t in the cards for us, I guess.”

Here today, gone to Maui: Woodbridge boys’ basketball coach Bill Shannon isn’t used to having a whole lot of free time in the middle of February.

Shannon coached Woodbridge and Adam Keefe to a Southern Section 2-A championship in 1987, and to the 2-A final in 1988, is usually right in the thick of things about this time of year. But having been eliminated in the first round by Cypress last Wednesday, well, the Warriors have some free time on their hands.

What’s a coach to do?

“My wife and I are going to Maui,” Shannon said.

And the Warrior players?

“I had to force them to take some days off,” he said. “They wanted to get right back in the gym and get ready for next year.”

Prep Notes

Bob Ickes, Mater Dei’s baseball coach for the past 14 years, has been named 1989 Baseball Coach of the Year by the California Coaches Assn. and will be honored at a banquet in Walnut Creek March 17. Ickes has posted a 224-109-8 record and won the Southern Section’s 4-A division title in 1980. His 1985 team was 24-2 and ranked No. 1 in the nation by USA Today for most of the season. . . . Mike Moore, assistant basketball coach at Cypress, recently won $4,100 on the television game show, “Hollywood Squares.”