PREP NOTEBOOK : Basketball Blowouts Put Brea Girls, Coach Trakh on Defensive

In the wake of one of the worst shellackings in county girls’ basketball this season, Brea-Olinda Coach Mark Trakh said Wednesday he wasn’t trying to embarrass anyone.

The top-ranked Ladycats, who are 13-2, crushed Magnolia, 111-22, in an Orange League opener Tuesday night. They had the game won in the first quarter, when their full-court press helped them outscore the Sentinels, 32-0.

Trakh said he tried to keep things from getting ridiculous by benching Brea’s two leading players, point guard Nicole Erickson and forward Jody Anton, for about half the game. Both scored 16 points.

“In the second half, we told the kids to let them (the Sentinels) shoot,” Trakh said.

That, however, came as small consolation for Magnolia Coach Doug Romeo.

“Mark Trakh is a great coach, and he has to coach as he thinks is best for his team,” Romeo said. “But I don’t know if they really needed to do things like that (full-court press).”

But Trakh recalled a similar incident against Anaheim two years ago, when Brea held a huge lead late in the game, and his attempts to hold down the winning margin were not received warmly by the opposing coach.

“We were up by about 100 to 25 with seven minutes to play,” Trakh said, “so we just passed the ball around until the 30-second (shot) clock ran out. But the other coach felt humiliated even more. We could have done the same thing this time, but that can be equally embarrassing.

“I’m in a tough position. We are very strong, and the league is not. And we can’t treat these games as scrimmages or practices either. It’s not going to help us.”

Trakh said another problem he faces is that his players, namely Anton and Erickson, risk potential postseason individual honors by limiting their scoring opportunities against weaker teams.

“Jody could have scored 60 points, but she doesn’t pad her stats against the weak teams,” said Trakh, who remains baffled about how the other coaches picked Anton as the league’s fourth-best player last year.

“You know what the (former) Anaheim coach (Sam Lias) said last year? He said he didn’t see her play against them last year, so he didn’t vote for her,” said Trakh, who kept Anton out of those games on purpose. “That’s not right.”