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She’s already at a disadvantage being just over 5 feet tall. Then, there are all those defensive looks that opposing teams throw at her.

A box-and-one, in which four players play a zone defense and the fifth stays glued to her, is practically a given from the opening tap. Some teams amp that up to double-teaming her. Others go so far as to triple-team her.

Yet Erika Ettl, a tiny sophomore guard, has played like a giant for a Yokota girls basketball team chock full of underclassmen that lost its first three games but has gone 8-3 since.

Entering last weekend’s games, Ettl was averaging 24.6 points per game. But she’s far more than a shooter — even at 5 feet 1½, she’s averaging 6.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists and four steals per game.

All of that while having to play basketball feeling as though she’s covered by a blanket.

“At a young age, it’s very difficult to be double- and triple-teamed, but that’s what I have to face,” Ettl said. “I want my team to win. I think I have to do whatever I can to lead my team to victory. If it takes me to be double-teamed every time, then that’s what it takes.”

“We just know it’s going to happen,” coach Ric Cabral said. “I see them play other teams and run their normal defense, but when they play us, first thing they do immediately is box-and-one, sometimes double-team.”

Even with success against Yokota, beating the Panthers 62-32 on Dec. 5 and 65-51 on Jan. 9, longtime Robert D. Edgren coach Sarah Richardson refers to Ettl as a “game-changer” and always sends her Eagles onto the court with a specific instruction: “Stop No. 10.”

“You have to,” Richardson said. “I know she gets beat down, but that’s to be expected when you have those skills and influence on your team. If she gets loose, she’s going to tear it up. You can’t let her loose. You can’t let her get hot. She’s the key to that whole team.”

Those skills and influence have served Cabral well, he says, in that Ettl works to develop the freshmen and sophomores’ games.

“Whenever I teach the girls, I use Erika as the example,” Cabral said. “You see it before, during and after practice working with the girls on their skills. We’re scoring better as a result of her work with her teammates.”

Asked to work with sophomore Kelsey Scott on layups, for example, “now she’s making layup after layup,” Cabral said. “Her defense with her speed is outstanding, but her offense has gotten so much better with Erika working with her individually.”

With Ettl’s dead-eye accuracy from three-point range, Yokota is able to spread opposing defenses to allow the inside players to make an impact, Cabral said.

“It opens up a lot on offense,” he said.

Richardson, for her part, noted a difference between the first and second time the Eagles played Yokota.

“It’s not just Erika; it’s those big girls down low,” Richardson said. “The last time we played them, the big girls inside stepped up.”

Those complementary players in the paint include Katherine White, Ayana Thomas, K.K. Jordan and Julia Marrin.

From what he called a “pretty dreadful start” to the season, Cabral says he likes his team’s chances “a lot better than I did at the beginning of the season” despite two losses last weekend.

“People going 100 percent, hustling, going for rebounds, going after loose balls, that wasn’t happening at the start of the season,” Ettl said. “We’re playing more as a team, not like at the start, when we didn’t know each other, we didn’t connect.”

Cabral points to a comeback from a 21-point deficit against Christian Academy in Japan, whom Yokota beat in overtime 53-51 on Jan. 13. Earlier in the season, he says, that might not have happened.

“Everybody got involved, the bench players, it was a beautiful game,” Cabral said. “Erika, of course, did her thing (23 points), but what was overlooked was she made key steals at the end to tie it. When she fouled out in the overtime, there was panic, but she calmed them and encouraged them to play hard.”

Ettl’s the proverbial apple that didn’t fall far from the tree; her father, Paul, coaches Yokota’s varsity boys.

“She’s relentless. She’ll just keep coming,” the elder Ettl said. “She grew up around basketball. I consider myself pretty competitive, and that’s what she was exposed to.”

What will all that translate to in 10 days, when Yokota travels to Camp Zama for the 35th Far East Class AA Tournament?

“We’re always rated as underdogs,” Ettl said. “We’ll always put on a good show when we step on the court.”

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Dave Ornauer has been employed by or assigned to Stars and Stripes Pacific almost continuously since March 5, 1981. He covers interservice and high school sports at DODEA-Pacific schools and manages the Pacific Storm Tracker.

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