Batteries Not Included : Marina Is Off, Running When Nakase Is All Charged Up to Play Basketball

Maybe the most important thing to know about Marina guard Natalie Nakase is this: Her team finished third in the Alaska Hoops Challenge and she was still named the tournament’s most valuable player.

“That would never happen at our tournament,” Marina Coach Pete Bonny said, referring to the MVP award going to a member of a third-place team.

“Our tournament” is the Marina tournament, which begins today. The Vikings will be trying to win the title for the first time since 1987. If they are to be successful, Nakase will play a major role.

If she isn’t scoring--and that is largely a bonus--she will be making the critical pass or the defensive steal. She might even be scrambling for a big rebound.

The Vikings are 7-1 and Nakase is averaging 13.5 points, 5.1 assists and 3.4 rebounds. Considering the latter, one has to remember that Nakase is 5 feet 1, no matter what she’s listed in the program. Though quiet and unassuming, she makes lots of noise on the court.

Last year, she led the county by averaging eight assists per game, equaling her scoring output.

“But the team is better when we get balanced scoring,” Bonny said.

Marisa Emde lead Marina scorers (14.5 points). With Nakase, Emde and Adria Sortino, everyone knew Marina had the guards to compete in the top 10 this season. The question mark was in the paint, and the Vikings have gotten surprisingly steady play from their posts, especially sophomore Chanda McLeod (nine points, nine rebounds).

But opposing coaches know that Nakase, a junior, provides the spark--not only with her physical skills, but with her effort.

“I hate to single her out because it’s not like we have one person,” Bonny said, “but in one of the huddles [earlier this season], I said, ‘If we could get everybody playing as hard as Natalie, we’d be in great shape. And that didn’t even light a fire under some people.”

Nakase’s bundle of energy may not be wholly transferable, but she made an early impact. As a freshman playing on the varsity, she was nominated to be a captain. Same her sophomore year, when the team had two players being recruited by Division I colleges, Kirsten Cappel and Sonya Bryant.

“She’s not so much a vocal leader but a leader by example,” Bonny said. “But slowly, she’s becoming more vocal.”

She apparently listens well too.

“Some of my players come to me before they come to my coach,” Nakase said. “That’s nice, that they respect me in that way.”

Nakase’s 422 assists is second all-time at Marina, and she has nearly two full seasons to break Allison Krause’s 535. Krause graduated in 1989.

Nakase is the third Nakase sister to play at Marina, following in the sneakers of Nicola (who graduated in 1994) and Norie (1995).

Is Natalie the best of the lot?

“I don’t answer those questions,” she said.

Bonny will say this: “She’s the smartest player I’ve ever coached. She knows angles, what defense the other team is in, she can give suggestions to our players on how better to attack the other team.”

Even when Nakase has a bad game, it can turn out good.

The Vikings were playing defending Nevada large-school champion McQueen. Bonny said he had never seen his point guard make so many poor decisions. Coupled with his technical foul in the final minutes of the third quarter, and Nakase getting hammered on a foul that caused the technical, he put Nakase on the bench. “Things looked bleak,” Bonny said. But Marina, trailing by 10, made a run with its reserves over the next five minutes.

Nakase went back in the game with six minutes to go and the teams battled back and forth. With the score tied at 50 with 1:20 remaining, Marina went to a four-corners stall (there was no shot clock).

“She dribbled the clock down to 15 and we ran a play for her,” Bonny said. “As she drove, she was picked up by a couple of big people, and she gave the ball away to [sophomore] Karyn Fierst for the game-winning assist. That’s her--she would almost rather get the assist than the basket.”

That, Bonny said, was Nakase’s defining moment as a player in his program.

Nakase admits she feels some pressure on her “because I have to keep [teammates] going and intense during the game, but I just hope they want to win as bad as I do.”

Which brings her to today’s tournament and, finally, a chance to showcase her skills in front of a local crowd.

“I don’t want to go out there and impress people,” Nakase said. “I want to win this tournament as a team.”