High School Female Athlete of the Week: Fountain Valley’s Audrey Tengan took over in Wave League title game
In the eyes of a jump shooter, the basket may get smaller if the first couple of shots do not fall.
For Audrey Tengan, a sophomore guard on the Fountain Valley High girls’ basketball team, the night of Jan. 25 had been one of those quiet nights from the field. The Barons walked off their home court with a narrow 51-49 victory over Marina.
Afterward, Barons coach Marianne Karp recognized a discouraged player. She pulled Tengan aside and expressed that she had full confidence in her going forward.
“I said, ‘Look, tonight wasn’t your night. You have to keep believing in yourself. There are so many things that you do well on this court,’†Karp said.
It would only be five days before Tengan showed why it was important to keep believing in herself.
“We go play Marina again, and she gets 25 [points],†Karp said. “I pull her out, I look at her and I smile, and I go, ‘See what I mean? This is exactly what I’m talking about.’â€
Tengan’s 25 points were a career-high total that led Fountain Valley to a 60-48 road victory over the Vikings on Jan. 30. She also had four rebounds, four assists and four steals in the contest.
Fountain Valley (16-12, 5-1 in league) clinched the Wave League championship in that game, going through the defending league champions to do so. It was the first league championship for the Barons since the 1995-96 season.
Karp prides her team on being one that focuses on the intangibles, a group that remains competitive in games even when the ball is not going through the hoop as often as they would like.
Senior forward Kat Luu, one of Fountain Valley’s three team captains along with Tiffany Shimizu and Caitlin Okawa, has been an example for the youthful Barons to follow in filling out the stat sheet.
A four-year varsity player, Luu knows all too well that it has taken a total team effort for the Barons to experience the turnaround. Her love for the sport was tested when the Barons did not win a single game in the Sunset League her freshman year.
Of Fountain Valley’s starting five, three are sophomores — Tengan, her twin sister, Margaret, and center Zoe Ziegler. Sophomore guard Madison Suekawa has also been vital in a sixth-man role.
“It’s pretty cool that we won the league championship because it’s been a long journey, especially these past four years because we went from a 0-10 team to being almost undefeated in league,†said Luu, whose team will learn Sunday who it will open the CIF Southern Section Division 3A playoffs against on Thursday. “It’s pretty cool to see how our team has turned around in my time here.â€
Luu also credits her younger teammates, saying that Fountain Valley did not get to where it wanted to be until the fore-mentioned sophomores entered the program last season.
“They really kind of brought our team together, especially because they’re such young talent, and they’re really mature in their game,†Luu said. “I’m really glad that they brought us together.â€
Tengan said her friends would describe her as encouraging, trustworthy and fun. She prefers not to play the piano in front of others, but she had no problem playing basketball in front of people with the league title on the line.
“I knew that game was critical if we wanted to win league,†Tengan said. “A lot of my teammates weren’t able to play, either because they were sick or hurt. Even some of the girls who were playing were not feeling great.
“I was feeling fine, so I knew that I had to make sure that I could get the 50-50 balls and get the rebounds.â€
Although she said her parents did not have an athletics background in high school, her father, Tom, started coaching the twin sisters on a South East Youth Organization team for Wintersburg Presbyterian Church in Santa Ana.
“It’s been really fun having my dad be my coach,†Tengan said. “It’s just been fun to be able to talk about our games and different plays at home.â€
Tengan also feels fortunate to have Karp as her high school coach because she has been around the game of basketball in various capacities. Karp previously officiated women’s college basketball at the Division 1 level, including a Final Four in San Antonio in 2010.
As a Fountain Valley alumnus who won a league title under Carol Strausburg in 1981, Karp is proud to have restored the Barons to a winning program. As a former referee, she might see things in the game that others might not be looking for.
“What Audrey does is she is sneaky,†Karp said. “She will go behind someone and then tap the ball away. Kat will get it, and they’ll both go running up the floor. A lot of the things that Audrey does, you just don’t see. I will turn to my assistant coach [Dawn Lawler], and I will say, ‘Did you see Audrey do that,’ because it looks like Kat got a steal, but Audrey is the one that really tipped it away.
“Audrey will be the one that will get somebody wrong-footed, and the person will travel. Audrey will be a person blocking out somebody who is much taller than her, not just so that her girl doesn’t get it, but so that somebody else on our team can go get it.â€
Audrey Tengan
Born: Jan. 14, 2004
Hometown: Fountain Valley
Height: 5 feet 3
Weight: 120 pounds
Sport: Basketball
Year: Sophomore
Coach: Marianne Karp
Favorite food: Ramen
Favorite movie: The “Harry Potter†series
Favorite athletic moment: Fountain Valley pulled off a 48-44 upset win over Huntington Beach at home on Jan. 7.
Week in review: Tengan had a career-high 25 points to go with four rebounds, four assists and four steals in the Barons’ 60-48 win at Marina on Jan. 30. The win clinched the Wave League championship, the program’s first league title since 1996.
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