PLAYOFF PROFILES : Control Key for Tumanian

The four words that echo in her ears before each game are not exactly lost on Van Nuys High’s Gohar Tumanian. Sometimes, they’re simply misplaced.

“You cannot foul out,” Coach Tony Magnante tells his star player before each tip-off.

Words to live by for Tumanian, a four-year starter at forward who has fouled out in eight of the Wolves’ 19 games this season.

“That’s all he’s ever told me,” Tumanian said. “[But] I know why he says it. I know my team needs me to stay in the game.”

Tumanian is one player Van Nuys cannot afford to lose: She leads the team with averages of 18.8 points and 16.5 rebounds. She routinely scores twice as many points as any other teammate, and without her the Wolves would have been hard-pressed to earn a City Section 4-A Division playoff berth.

At 5 feet 9 inches, she is the tallest player on the team. She is also the most aggressive, which is why Magnante bites his nails when Tumanian gets fire in her eyes.

“She wants to win in the worst way,” Magnante said. “She’s an extremely aggressive and intense player.”

Tumanian, who moved to Hollywood from Armenia with her mother and sister in 1983, learned aggressiveness from playing against boys three and four years older.

But, by her own admission, her aggressiveness often has manifested itself into a bad temper.

The rubber band she wore on her wrist so she could quickly punish herself with a snap when she made a mistake is gone now and so are most of Tumanian’s impulsive acts. What remains is an unyielding desire to make something happen on the court.

“I don’t like to lose,” she said. “We can be down by 20 [points] but I’ll still dive out of bounds for a ball.”