Women’s Basketball Is Finding the Right Trakh at Pepperdine

Since Mark Trakh completed his tango in spring with the Pepperdine athletic department--first accepting the position as women’s basketball coach, then rejecting it, then finally accepting it again. He now has settled down to business with the Waves.

And, in preparing Pepperdine for its season opener Friday against Evansville in the first round of the Nebraska tournament, Trakh has found that coaching in the collegiate ranks is as challenging as he expected.

Trakh, 35, arrived at Pepperdine this season after a highly successful, 13-year career as coach at Brea-Olinda High.

Under Trakh’s guidance, the Ladycats became one of the strongest programs in State history, winning four State titles, six CIF Southern Section titles and 11 consecutive Orange League championships.

Trakh’s cumulative record at the school was 356-42.

At Pepperdine, Trakh replaced Ron Fortner, who resigned in April after a 10-year record of 131-153.

Trakh is expected to revitalize the program, although he might not find success in his first season.

“It’s new to everybody,” Trakh said. “The kids are starting to get to know me. We’re all going through a learning process right now.”

Learning to accept defeat, in fact, might be one of the most difficult challenges facing Trakh.

“It’s difficult because when I was at Brea, you knew that you were only going to get three or four tough games a year,” Trakh said. “We could really win the league playing our second group of kids.”

It won’t be that way in the West Coast Conference, but there is one thing Trakh doesn’t need to change--the structure of his practices. He ran his practices so well at Brea-Olinda that college coaches coaches used to attend to learn from them.

One obvious difference, however, is the age of his players. Previously, coaching youth and high school players, he dealt with ages 8-17. Now, he is dealing with young adults. “They’re adults, but in a way they’re still kids too, you just have to learn what they’re going through at this stage of life,” Trakh said.

Trakh’s decision to go to Pepperdine was difficult for him because he was close to his players at Brea-Olinda. Ultimately, it was his players who convinced him to move on.

There was speculation that Brea-Olinda’s most recent star player, senior guard Nicole Erickson, might follow him to Pepperdine. Erickson was selected The Times’ Orange County player of the year last season, after she made the winning shot with 3.5 seconds remaining in the State title game.

But Trakh said that he was not surprised that Erickson, one of the nation’s top recruits, signed a letter of intent this month to attend Purdue, which finished 16-11 last season and did not advance to the NCAA tournament last season for the first time in four years.

Erickson told Trakh that she intended to go to a school where she had a chance to win a national title Purdue is ranked 25th in the preseason Associated Press Poll.

But Trakh does have one Brea-Olinda player on the Wave roster: senior guard Aimee McDaniel, who was a first-team all-conference selection last season after leading the Waves with an average of 15.1 points, 6.2 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game in conference play. Trakh coached McDaniel from sixth grade through high school.

McDaniel is similar to Erickson in attitude, Trakh said, which is: “Give me the ball and I’m going to win the game for you.”

Pepperdine lost six seniors, including three starters, from last season’s team, which finished 15-15, 7-7 and in third place in conference. Trakh plans to put much energy of his time into recruiting, and it’s no surprise that he is looking first to his former team.

“We didn’t get Nicole, but we’ve got a chance to get a lot of the young ones that are coming up,” Trakh said. “I’ve got a lot of ties to that community. Let’s put it this way, if I don’t get a Brea kid, I’m never going to get anybody.”

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Loyola Marymount women’s basketball team returns seven players, including four starters, from a team that finished 14-12 overall, 5-9 and in eighth in the West Coast Conference last season.

The Lions will be led by Sheri Brown, a 6-1 senior forward who was a first-team all-West Coast Conference selection last season. Brown averaged 16.2 points and 10.3 rebounds. Amy Lundquist, a 6-5 sophomore center who ranked fifth in the nation last season, averaging 3.4 blocked shots, also returns for the Lions. Loyola Marymount will open Friday against Northern Illinois in the Hawaii tournament.