She Makes Quick Work of Opponents : Soccer: Tanaka’s natural speed helps turn Marina into contender in the Sunset League.

Rhiannon Tanaka is a natural sprinter, perhaps the fastest female runner at Marina High School.

Last spring she joined the track team for a dual meet and won the 100-meter dash and finished second in the 200, before deciding she didn’t enjoy the sport.

“It wasn’t fun,” Tanaka said. “I know it sounds funny, but I don’t like running.”

It only sounds odd because in the sport she prefers--soccer--she plays outside midfielder, a position that requires her to run all over the field.

“I get tired, but it’s not that bad because you’re going along with other people and you don’t constantly run,” Tanaka said. “Every once in a while you get a break.”

But Tanaka gives opponents few breathers. Tanaka, a junior captain, is an integral part of the Vikings (7-2-3), who have been giving fits to some of the best squads in Southern California.

Thursday, the final day of the Excalibur tournament, Marina, ranked seventh in Orange County, played to a tie with Encinitas San Dieguito, a two-time defending San Diego Section champion, and El Toro, then the No. 1-ranked team in the county.

San Dieguito and El Toro eventually won in shootouts, but in each game, Tanaka made her presence felt.

In the semifinal against San Dieguito, she played most of the game on defense after the Vikings’ center fullback left because of an injury and San Dieguito was held scoreless in a 0-0 tie. Against El Toro in the third-place game, Tanaka scored the tying goal on a header with 20 minutes left in regulation. Teammate Marcy Crouch took a free kick from 35 yards out and Tanaka got to the ball first.

“She beat two El Toro players and just flicked it off the side of her head off the far post,” Marina Coach Bobby Bruch said. “It was the best goal we have scored all year.”

It was Tanaka’s eighth goal this season, but she isn’t Marina’s leading scorer. Tanaka, who has five assists, sets up goals for players such as Amy Peterson, a senior forward who led the team with 18 goals in each of the last two seasons.

“Rhiannon’s a great team player,” Bruch said. “She’s not selfish and she sacrifices her individual goals for the team’s goals.

“That’s one of the things that makes her such a great all-around player. She’d just as soon pass for an assist as score a goal.”

Tanaka says she is happy to be on such a skilled team, which is expected to challenge Edison for the Sunset League title.

“It makes me look better to be on a good team,” she said. “We can always depend on each other, and know that someone is there, so you don’t have to do it all yourself.”

Until last year, Tanaka, who is 5 feet 7, was a two-sport athlete at Marina. She played two seasons of junior varsity volleyball and also played for a club volleyball team.

After her sophomore volleyball season, Tanaka decided to concentrate on soccer, a sport in which she was a varsity starter as a freshman. That decision freed enough time last year to join the Olympic Development Program for the first time and she made the cut for the under-16 Southern California team.

Bruch said Tanaka has enough ability to eventually make the national team, depending on how she develops physiologically.

“Whatever the competition is, she’s going to rise to it and be just a notch better,” he said. “She’s one of those players who you don’t want to play against but you love to have on your team because of her tenacity and because she’s physical and has got that will to win.”