DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:

Ever since she could remember, Tiffany Monteiro has been a point guard.

The Estancia High senior, who began playing basketball in elementary school, started on a team in sixth grade at TeWinkle Middle School. She just wanted to play the game, but her coaches put her at the “one” spot out of necessity, she said.

“The coach always put me at point guard because I was the smallest player out there,” Monteiro said. “I just became comfortable with it and tried to get better at it.”

Monteiro, who also wears the No. 1 on her jersey, is plenty good now. She scored a team-high 13 points in both of Estancia’s wins last week, a 33-27 victory over Garden Grove on Jan. 3 and a 52-33 triumph over CdM the following night.

The only returning starter off last year’s team, Monteiro was more of a straight distributor last year but has stepped up her scoring. The Daily Pilot Athlete of Week is averaging 9.5 points per game for Estancia heading into tonight’s Orange Coast League opener at Costa Mesa at 6 p.m. That scoring total is second on the team to freshman Kassie Stratton.

Perhaps more importantly to Coach Tommy Rausch, Monteiro is ever-improving in reducing her turnovers.

“She’s taking care of the ball, which is just wonderful,” Rausch said. “Lately, we’ve just been stressing to the team how important every possession is. When you turn the ball over and you don’t get a shot up, you don’t really have a possession. We’ve talked about her decision-making, as far as scoring versus passing, and when to push and when to slow down.”

Slow was the word to describe the start to Estancia’s season, as the Eagles (3-14) lost 14 of their first 15 games. Estancia was in the midst of a 10-game losing streak when Monteiro was forced to miss two December games due to flu-like symptoms.

She even tried to practice through the sickness, she said, but just couldn’t do it.

“I didn’t go to school for a whole week,” Monteiro said. “It hit me hard.”

But Monteiro and her teammates have always stayed determined, she said. It’s a close-knit group that includes 10 seniors, headed by the senior team captains of Monteiro, Steffi Ramirez and Abby Koff.

The losses wore down the soft-spoken Monteiro most of all, Rausch said, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

“It showed more on her and affected her game more,” the second-year coach said. “She would play well and we’d lose, and she’d be frustrated. She’d play poorly and we’d lose, and she’d be frustrated. That affected her game. I think mentally, she had a block that she got past. There’s a different swagger when she plays now. Even when things go wrong, there’s a different attitude she’s taken.”

Monteiro said she has learned to treat a loss as something else entirely.

“I don’t think of it as losing, I think of it as something we need to work at,” she said. “Our coach tells us all the time that winning is a habit, and unfortunately so is losing. I think a loss is just telling you that you need to work harder and get yourself where you need to be. When I lose a game, it bugs me a lot, but I don’t let it get to me where next game I think, ‘Oh, we’re going to lose.’ I just go in with a winning attitude and see what happens.”

Monteiro wasn’t sure what would happen last year either, in Rausch’s first as coach. She said she was “pretty shocked” to be cast into a starting role. Behind then-seniors Yasmin Arroyo and Michelle Hallock, who were first- and second-team All-Orange Coast League selections, respectively, Monteiro didn’t look for her shot too much.

This season, she leads the team in assists, but she’s scored more when the Eagles have needed it. And, although she’s not the most vocal player, Monteiro will also speak up when needed.

“[I want to be] not so much a leader, but someone who’s there for everyone,” Monteiro said. “Someone they can count on. I’m not really the person who is going to be the yelling type or put them in their place. That’s just not who I am. I’m just there to help them become better players.”

After winning three league games last year, the goal for Estancia is now to secure a second-place finish in league for a CIF Southern Section Division IV-AA playoff berth. Look for Monteiro to have a big impact the rest of the way.

“I think Tiffany really understands the importance of practice, the importance of the structure that we require here,” Rausch said. “Being on time, bring your stuff, it’s simple things. You could argue they aren’t important, but they make or break teams.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at [email protected].