Oilers’ White stands tall

Rebounding in basketball is sometimes unappreciated.

The top NBA rebounder of the 1990s, Dennis Rodman, was as well-known for his multi-colored hair designs and posing in a wedding dress as for crashing the boards.

The top rebounder of last decade, Ben Wallace, might have been as well-known for his afro.

Huntington Beach High senior Meghan White is decidedly less eccentric, but she also possesses the ability to know where a missed shot is going to end up.

And the top rebounders might not always be the biggest stars, but White is definitely appreciated by the Oilers.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a player like Meghan,” Oilers girls’ basketball Coach Russell McClurg said of his team captain. “She just has a knack for the basketball. There’s a lot of times I’ll sit there and go, ‘How did she get 18 rebounds, or 15’ ... We look at Meghan as the backbone of the team. Rebounding is so important.”

White stands 5 feet 11, tall but not that tall for girls’ basketball. Yet with her 11.2 points and 12.4 rebound per-game averages coming into this week, she easily averages a double-double. She is second in the county in total rebounds with 239.

In her third full year on varsity and on a relatively young team, she has also picked up her scoring from a 7.5 average season ago. But the rebounding is where she can help the Oilers (15-5), ranked No. 7 in the CIF Southern Section Division II-AA poll.

No wonder her favorite NBA player is Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic.

“I just love going for the ball,” said White, who also plays softball for Huntington Beach. She remembers being on varsity her sophomore year, when the Oilers featured 6-foot-1 Jasmine Erving, now at Cal State Northridge.

“Basically my coach said my goal was to get rebounds and put them back up,” White said. “Now that I’m a captain, I tried to pick up my scoring as well. I was working on my offensive game all summer. It’s been good.”

So have the Oilers, who have established themselves as threats in the Sea View League, with a 3-1 record despite Tuesday night’s 57-29 loss to defending CIF champion Woodbridge. Sophomores Kelsey Minato and Maya Kennedy lead the team in scoring yet it has also been the play of others like Merwa Azizi, who has stepped up with some big games. White said the team also lost senior Brooke Thomas to a season-ending ACL injury over the summer.

“Merwa is one of the best defensive players on our team,” said White, always the team player. “Her favorite player is Kobe [Bryant] and she has the same kind of intensity when she’s on the ball.”

McClurg’s teams have won at least 20 games for four straight years. He knew his team would be young this year, with just four returners, losing graduates like Noelani Viloria (now playing at Santa Clara). He set 15 wins as a goal for the year but with six games remaining the Oilers have already matched it already matched it. The team went out to dinner Saturday night after beating Westminster to celebrate.

White has been an undeniable force in the Oilers’ surprising run.

“I’m very, very pleased with where we’re at right now,” McClurg said. “It’s been a lot of fun to see these kids mature real quick. Meghan just always has been there for the team. We can always count on her dominating the boards.”

White has a 4.4 grade-point average and said she might like to attend UCLA. She’s always grown up as a Bruins fan since her grandfather, Roger, was an alumnus. Roger White played on the 1954 UCLA football team, the only national championship team in the program’s history.

Still, she knows if she goes to a Division II school she might be able to keep playing hoops in college.

“Now that I have basketball options too, we’ll see,” she said.

Not that she has a lot of extra time, but White said she also likes to cook and bodysurf. She also likes to sing and dance and she knows all the popular songs on the radio.

But, for now, she is focused on helping the Oilers to a good standing in league and hopefully a deep run into the CIF playoffs.

“I’m just excited for the rest of the season,” White said. “I want to thank the coaching staff. We’ve averaged 20 wins since my freshman year and that’s awesome.”

McClurg can thank White for plenty of those wins this season.

“She’s done an amazing job with what she does in the classroom and on the basketball court,” he said.