Garner Gets a Break When Net Comes Down, Hoops Go Up : Tustin: In center’s two seasons, basketball team hasn’t lost in league, but volleyball another matter.

It’s a simple change of season--from volleyball to basketball--but for Tustin’s Christine Garner it makes all the difference in the world. It means Garner now plays for one of the best teams in the Sea View League instead of one of the worst.

“It’s a relief,” Garner said. “It is such a relief. I guess that’s why I’m so excited for this year. I was excited for last year also just because I know that I’m actually going to be able to play well and our team will do well.”

If high school volleyball has been frustrating for Garner, who was the league’s co-most valuable player for the fifth-place Tillers, basketball is a healing salve. In Garner’s two seasons playing for Tustin, the Tillers haven’t lost a league game.

Last season as a junior, Garner averaged 20 points and 11 rebounds and was named co-most valuable player with teammate Wanda Sequeira.

Now that Sequeira has graduated and moved on to the University of San Francisco, Garner, a first-team All-Southern Section Division II selection, becomes the premier player in the well-balanced league.

With that unofficial title comes plenty of attention, but Garner, a 6-foot center, doesn’t mind. She’s accustomed to being the best athlete on most playing fields.

As a freshman at Tustin, Garner tried track and field--and was named the team’s most valuable athlete. She was good enough at the shotput and discus to qualify for the Southern Section championships and also high jumped and ran the 100 meter hurdles.

As a sophomore, she dumped track for softball, the first organized sport she picked up when she was 6. She batted .354 and was a first-team all-league selection at catcher.

Before high school, Garner also tried competitive swimming and soccer. It’s an impressive athletic resume that some say could have been even more eye-opening.

“Our athletic director says if she wanted to push it, she could have been the first female tight end on the football team,” Tustin Coach Rick Falk said. “There’s nothing masculine about her but she’s big and she’s very, very strong.”

Garner laughs at the thought of playing football but said the notion probably came after one of her trips to the weight room.

“I really don’t weight-lift that much, but it seems that the rare times that I do go in there I seem to be able to power-lift over everybody,” Garner said. “I’ve been able to go into the gym and bench 180, which is a lot for a girl. Some of the football players can’t even do that.

“Everyone said, ‘Oh my God.’ Some people can’t even lift the bar. It was pretty funny.”

On the basketball court, that strength serves as a nice complement to Garner’s quickness. Tustin, which lost only four games last season, often played much of the second half without its starters, and Falk says Garner’s statistics project to 29 points and 18 rebounds a game if she were to play the full 32 minutes.

Furthermore, Falk said, Garner could be even better if she didn’t play volleyball.

“If she concentrated on basketball only she’d easily be the best player in the county,” Falk said. “I don’t want to put anything up on anyone’s bulletin board, but she’s the best athlete playing basketball in the county. I don’t think there’s any question about it.”

“Whatever she does, she makes it look so easy,” he said. “To me, that’s the mark of a good athlete. But by no means does she work very hard on her basketball skills.”

Admittedly, Garner works hardest on volleyball. It’s her favorite sport and the one that should earn her a college scholarship. She plays club volleyball during the high school basketball season and has been offered full scholarships by Washington State, Alabama, USC, Arizona State and Pacific.

Garner plans to give up basketball after her senior season at Tustin.

“My hopes are for the Olympics and I know if I work hard I can get there,” she said. “So I’m just thinking that if I just played volleyball, I’d have more time to dedicate everything and all my extra time to volleyball, and get that much better.”