Canyon’s Waggoner Proving She Can Hold Her Own With Anyone : Basketball: Senior guard has quietly established herself as the Century League’s top player.

Although Erin Waggoner expected culture shock when she left Columbus, Ohio, in the spring of 1990, she wasn’t prepared for her first encounter of the California kind.

“The first student I saw at Canyon High School had blue hair,” Waggoner recalled. “Back in Columbus, you heard stories about the California weather and all the surfers, but when I saw that. . . . “

Since then, Waggoner has left many of Canyon’s opponents feeling blue. Last season, her first with the Comanche girls’ basketball team, Waggoner averaged 20 points, four assists and four rebounds to help Canyon finish second in the Century League.

Waggoner, who is 5 feet 7, also impressed the coaches, earning Century League most valuable player honors last season as a junior.

“She’s the best player in the county that no one has heard about,” Canyon Coach Bill Fitzgibbons said.

Last season, UC Riverside assistant coach Kim Beckhart attended an Estancia-Canyon game to see the Eagles’ Melody Earle play. But Beckhart wound up recruiting Waggoner instead.

And after following Waggoner through last season and the summer leagues, Riverside head coach Debi Woelke had her signed in mid-November.

“I got along with both Coach Beckhart and Coach Woelke right off the bat,” Waggoner said. “I didn’t want to go to a big school. The smaller schools offer more individual attention and I wanted to be in a good (academic) environment.”

“Academics are a major priority for Erin,” Woelke said. And Riverside’s student enrollment of 8,500 suited Waggoner, as did the basketball program.

“On the basketball court, she creates a spark,” Woelke said. “She has that all-out hustle; you can tell she’s a leader.”

Waggoner also played well for a summer league all-star team assembled by Palos Verdes Coach Wendell Yoshida and Steve Kabaloski, Woelke said.

Included on the squad were five all-CIF players from Palos Verdes, a team that went 32-2 last season and won the Division III-AA Southern Section title. USC-bound Jody Anton of Brea-Olinda and UCLA-bound Zrinka Kristich of La Habra also played on the squad.

“She fit in well with that summer team,” Woelke said. “She held her own; in my opinion she’s a Division I (college) player.”

Fitzgibbons echoed Woelke’s sentiments but pointed out that Waggoner considered many other factors besides basketball when she decided to attend Riverside, which has a Division II women’s basketball program.

“She’s an A-student,” Fitzgibbons said. “Although her parents are pretty well off, she decided against going to Harvard, which also recruited her for basketball, or a bigger school because she is getting the scholarship at Riverside.

“I think it’s her way of paying back her parents for all of their support,” Fitzgibbons said.

That family commitment carries over onto the court, with her basketball family.

“Erin’s willing to do what’s best for the team,” Woelke said.

What’s best for Canyon is getting the ball into Waggoner’s hands, so Fitzgibbons is moving Waggoner from shooting guard to point guard this year.

While Fitzgibbons wants Waggoner to hand out assists and involve the entire team in the offense, he also expects Waggoner to increase her production from a year ago.

“We want her to shoot more three-pointers this year,” Fitzgibbons said. “Last year, she attempted only nine three-pointers, but in a summer league game this year, she made nine three-pointers in a row.”

If her production peaks or falters, Waggoner will still become the second college basketball player in her family. Waggoner’s father, Richard, played for two years at the University of Pittsburgh.

And when she is at Riverside, her two years at Canyon will have her prepared for calculus, physics, history and any blue-haired students she might encounter.