She’s Balancing Life, Sport : Pacifica’s Pawlowski Is No Gym Rat, She Just Plays Like It

Holly Pawlowski attends the school closest to her home, Pacifica. She plays two high school sports--basketball and volleyball--and has played only high school sports. She has a 3.4 grade-point average, and balances friends with schoolwork and athletics.

She’s the first to tell you she has a life.

In many ways, Pawlowski is a throwback to days when high school sports were simpler, when the neighborhood school made do with its community’s natural resources.

“She’s always going to be a person who is able to reflect on things and say it was a fun experience and that she got the most out of it,” Pacifica girls’ basketball Coach Ryan Bettencourt said.

This is how much she’s gotten out of it. Pawlowski never considered herself athletic, and didn’t play sports of any kind until she reached reached high school, when she tried out for the volleyball team at a friend’s urging.

Basketball? She had no exposure to it, and didn’t want any part of it. “I was afraid of going out because all my friends were getting cut, and I wasn’t really athletic at all--so I waited until I was a sophomore,” she said.

Pity she waited, because Pawlowski can play. In a program that has had five varsity coaches in four years, she has emerged as a pivotal player in turning around a program in turmoil. Pacifica is doing something it is totally unaccustomed to--winning.

The Mariners are 10-12, 8-2 in the Garden Grove League, and have won as many league games this season as in the past two years combined. They are in second place, one game behind Garden Grove, and already have clinched a Division III-A Southern Section playoff berth.

Pawlowski is one of the reasons. The 6-foot senior forward is averaging 11.7 points and eight rebounds. But most impressive is her 58.7% field-goal percentage--second only to Edison’s Marie Philman (59.7%) in Orange County.

Bettencourt thinks Pawlowski is the best player in the league--certainly the best post player--though Garden Grove guard Janine Shaw has her supporters.

But Bettencourt’s admiration goes beyond what Pawloski accomplishes in the low post.

“Not only is she hard-working with a lot of skills, but she has become more of a leader than I thought she would,” Bettencourt said. “People have started to look to her not only on the court, but off the floor as well, especially the younger kids in the program.

“Before, there was no example, no leadership in the program, and now they’ve seen someone who has put in the time and has had some success, and they’re thinking, ‘If we do the same thing, maybe we can have some success somewhere down the line too.’ ”

Last year, her first on varsity, the Mariners revolved around Pilar Surch. As such, they were one-dimensional, and no shooting percentages were kept for anyone besides Surch. It was a frustrating season for Pawlowski because of the team’s direction.

“She was such a great player, it was my first year on varsity and I didn’t think much about it,” Pawlowski said. “But looking back on it, it makes me feel bad for everybody because we were just there to fill four spots on the team. I wasn’t there to do very much--I was just kind of there.”

Not this year. She’s squarely in the middle of what’s happening. Another post player, Amy Rummel, gives the Pacifica guards another scoring option. But Bettencourt said his team has discovered over the past two weeks that when Pawlowski gets a shot, the Mariners get two points.

Pawlowski will play two sports again next year, probably at Cypress College, because she loves both and it will give her time to determine which one to focus on at a four-year school.

But she’s leaning toward basketball. “I love the way the sport is,” Pawlowski said. “I feel that’s the sport I’ve improved the most in, and that I can improve more in.”

Her passion for basketball was sealed in the first league game at Rancho Alamitos.

“The moment we walked into the gym, I had this feeling we were going to win, and when I stepped on the court, everything all came together,” Pawlowski said.

Which makes Bettencourt ponder. “She’s not in the gym every single day,” he said. “I wonder sometimes what she would be like if she were.”