Small-School Girl a Hit in Big West : Women’s basketball: Kari Parriott goes from 1-A high school to top weapon for Long Beach. Titans meet 49ers today for the conference tournament title.

Kari Parriott used to score 30 points a game in high school, and her team would win by ridiculously lopsided scores.

“I think there was one that was 96-13,” she said, not without sympathy.

But you probably didn’t read much about Parriott, because she did her scoring at Valley Christian High School, a 1-A school in Cerritos, not far from Parriott’s Buena Park home.

She had the numbers, but she also had the metaphorical asterisk that small-school players carry.

Sure she scores, people wondered, but how would she play against real competition?

Back then, only the people who saw her in highly competitive Amateur Athletic Union games knew for sure.

Parriott’s emphatic answer will be on display today at Long Beach Arena, when she and the 21st-ranked Cal State Long Beach team play Cal State Fullerton for the Big West Conference tournament title.

Parriott, a 6-2 junior post player, is the 49ers’ third-leading scorer and leading rebounder. She averages 12.4 points and 7.4 rebounds for the 49ers (22-7).

In her best game this season, she scored 34 points against New Mexico State.

She is far from the eighth-grader who started playing basketball, unsure even of what a three-two zone defense was.

“I didn’t think I could play at Long Beach in a million years,” Parriott said.

She will meet another late bloomer on the court today in Genia Miller, the Titans’ 6-3 center.

“Genia’s going to get her points no matter whether you double-team her or triple-team her,” Parriott said. “We’re going to put the pressure on the outside. (Miller) might get 40, but we’re going to get 85.”

Miller did get 40 the last time these teams met, a 79-68 Long Beach victory. In the other game between them this season, Miller had 39 in a 75-63 Fullerton victory.

The primary defender on Miller today will probably be Danielle Scott, a 6-3 freshman with good leaping ability. But you can bet Parriott will be called on to help. And on the other end of the court, she will be one of the players trying to go at Miller without fear, despite the fact that Miller blocked 11 shots in a game Wednesday.

“She’ll get some blocked shots, fine,” Parriott said. “As long as you take it strong to the basket, right in to her, she’ll have to foul or back off. We’ve got to take it in on her.”

Parriott has had some success at that so far this season. She was Long Beach’s leading scorer in both Fullerton games, with 15 points in the first and 18 in the second.

Parriott landed at Long Beach only after a one-year stint at Oregon State, where she went the year after Valley Christian went 27-3 and made it to the Southern Section 1-A championship game.

But she didn’t like her basketball life there, and her family, which had moved to Seattle during her last year in high school, had returned to Orange County. Parriott came home, too. She started 17 games for the 49ers last season, and has started 28 of 29 this season.

She has thrived off the court as well and this week was honored as Cal State Long Beach’s woman scholar-athlete of the year.