Walker Has a Jump on Her Opponents : Girls’ basketball: Freshman’s turnaround shot has helped Huntington Beach become a contender in the Sunset League.

Clare Walker is only a freshman at Huntington Beach High School, but already she is making a name for herself as one of Orange County’s best young jump shooters.

Walker, 14, doesn’t shoot just any jump shot. She shoots the turnaround--one of the harder skills for a girls’ basketball player to master.

And for Walker, who has asthma, the jump shot is just what the doctor ordered.

“(Asthma) can be something you’re allergic to or something you just suddenly smell or, if you’re nervous about something it can come on and you just get really tense and your lungs just shrink,” Walker said. “The doctors encouraged me to play basketball and swim because they helped open my lungs. They said get as much exercise as you can.”

Before she and her family learned the right mix of medication to handle her asthma, Walker had attacks so severe that she ended up in a hospital, once with double pneumonia and three times to receive intravenous muscle relaxers, her father, Paul Walker, said.

Now, she is fine as long as she takes her medication regularly. She also carries a small pump with her to every game in case she has an attack.

But don’t think of Walker as a delicate, wheezing, sickly little girl because she has asthma.

At 5-feet-9, 150 pounds, Walker is hale, not frail.

“She is not a little frail girl out there,” Marina Coach Pete Bonny said. “She has a good basketball body. She is solidly built and pretty strong for a freshman.”

It is that strength that helps her with the turnaround jump shot.

Walker does not believe her ability to shoot the turnaround jumper with good height and from beyond 15 feet is rare in county girls’ basketball, even for a freshman. “People have commented about it, but I see other girls doing it,” said Walker, who began playing organized basketball as a sixth-grader with The Untouchables, a Fountain Valley recreation team.

Those other girls? Members of The Blazers, Walker’s eighth-grade Downey-based Amateur Athletic Union team. It was Blazer Coach Laurie Woerful who got Walker started on the turnaround.

Walker’s shot has helped her lead Huntington Beach in scoring, averaging 12 points a game. She also averages six rebounds a game. No small feat considering she never plays more than three quarters. Huntington Beach Coach Nick Bartlett spreads the playing time among 10 players.

“I look at my team and say I’ve got a starting 10,” Bartlett said. “It is real unusual. I have 10 what I think are really good players.

“It really depends upon the defense I think (opponents) are going to be playing against us as to the players I am going to be playing in a game. But obviously to get points on the board I have got to get Clare and (senior) Jana Davis in there.”

Bartlett was impressed enough with Walker’s talent to tab her as one of the best freshmen in the state. That might be too big a jump even for Walker, but she certainly has established herself as one of the county’s best, along with Olivia DiCamille of Costa Mesa.

And she has been making an impression in the Sunset League where the Oilers, the league doormat along with Westminster the past couple of years, are 8-10 overall, 2-3 in league play and competing for a playoff spot.

In a Sunset League upset of Edison, Walker scored a team-high 14 points.

She had only an average game in a loss to Marina but Viking Coach Bonny took note. “I’m not sold on her being the best freshman in the state,” he said. “She has never gone to her left in her life. But I’m sure that will change. She is going to be around for three years and that is scary.”

Though the Oilers lost to Ocean View, one of the county’s top three teams, Walker showed her potential with 17 points. And she wasn’t afraid to challenge Ocean View’s 6-2 center Jennifer Sullivan, the Sunset League’s most valuable player as a junior last season.

“She made a couple of shots over Sullivan,” Bartlett said.

Walker can challenge taller player because she gets good height on her jump shot and she has a quick release. “She has a terrific jump shot and good range from about 17 to 18 feet,” Ocean View Coach Ollie Martin said. “And it is very hard to block, she shoots the ball very high. She is going to become a real good rebounder. The thing that will determine it all with her is her basketball desire.”

Walker has the desire and more.

“She is very mature for her age,” Bartlett said. “She is extremely easy to work with. If you tell her to do something, she does it. She is a coaches’ dream. Of course her family is very supportive of her in sports.”

Her father, an engineer, laid a slab of cement and put up a hoop in the backyard at Walker’s request. They are both modest about their one-on-one contests: “He could probably whip me in two seconds, but he plays it close,” she said.

Paul Walker said: “Well that’s what I try to make her believe.”

Walker’s parents attend her games and videotape the action for the team. “They encourage me,” Walker said. “They tell me what I could do better and they are just always there for me and just always helping me out.”