Kobrine a man of dual talents
Sam Kobrine spent much of December and the first week of the New Year playing two different roles in two different sports for two different teams.
Kobrine is a standout in volleyball and in basketball, and sometimes he plays both during the same time of the year. He’s a setter on the 949 Athletics under-17 volleyball team, as well as a shooting guard on the Corona del Mar High basketball team.
As a setter, Kobrine’s job is to set up of the offense, and as a guard, it’s his job to score. Making the transition from a passer in club volleyball to a scorer in high school basketball isn’t easy, but Kobrine showed signs last week that he can make the switch.
Kobrine led the Sea Kings to their first finals appearance in a tournament this season, after falling short in the semifinals in two other tournaments. The junior helped CdM to a runner-up finish at the Don Bambauer Memorial Holiday Classic at Kentfield Marin Catholic.
The Sea Kings lost to San Anselmo Drake, 54-40, in the championship, suffering their second-most lopsided setback of the season. The other was a 67-44 loss to Mater Dei, ranked No. 3 in the state by CalHiSports.com, in the semifinals of the CdM Beach Bash on Dec. 12.
“I think our guys were worn down,” Sea Kings Coach Ryan Schachter said, referring to playing four games in five days at the Don Bambauer event. “I think if we played [Drake] on the first, second or third night, it would’ve been a different ballgame. We scored two points in the first quarter.”
Despite the slow start against Drake, which is on the bubble of cracking the CalHiSports.com top-20 state poll, Schachter liked what he saw from Kobrine during the tournament.
Schachter said Kobrine looked more assertive offensively. He drove to the basket, while also knocking down the outside shot. As a result, Kobrine averaged 12.3 points per game. He finished with nine three-pointers and nine steals, earning him all-tournament honors.
“We want him to be more aggressive,” Schachter said. “He settles for threes too much, but he’s the guy on our team that can create shots.”
Schachter would like Kobrine to live up to the “Swaggy 3” nickname teammates gave him. Kobrine said the nickname is a play on Nick Young, who goes by “Swaggy P” with the Los Angeles Lakers.
While the two players sport similar South of France haircuts, “Swaggy 3” doesn’t shoot every time he touches the ball as “Swaggy P” does on the court. Kobrine is a more unselfish player, and it helps that CdM doesn’t rely on only a couple of players to produce points.
Schachter, who’s in his eighth season at CdM, said this is by far his deepest team. The Sea Kings have other starters, forward Kevin Fults, point guard Bo St. Geme and center Ryan Moss, as well bench players, Matt Ctvrtlik, Ryan Kleinman and Tae Le off the bench that can score. Each of those players has led CdM in scoring this season.
Four of those players, Fults, Moss, Ctvrtlik and Le, also play volleyball like Kobrine, and they plan to play the sport in college, Fults is bound for UC Santa Barbara and Moss for USC. Moss and Ctvrtlik missed the Sea Kings’ game against Santa Barbara San Marcos at the D3 Extravaganza showcase at San Juan Hills High last Saturday because of commitments to club volleyball.
Kobrine said he was lucky his 949 Athletics volleyball team finished play earlier that day at the Southern California Volleyball Assn. Junior Invitational in Anaheim before the Sea Kings’ tipoff, allowing him to make the game in San Juan Capistrano. The scheduling conflict involving volleyball players was a first for Schachter, who initially planned to discipline Moss and Ctvrtlik for missing CdM’s 41-38 overtime loss.
“I have to be smarter moving forward,” said Schachter, knowing that Moss and Ctvrtlik were trying to help their Balboa Bay under-18 team qualify for the USA Volleyball Junior National Championships in Columbus, Ohio, this summer. “I have four or five kids on JV and four or five on the freshman team that are good basketball players, and they’re all club volleyball players. I can’t be stubborn as a coach and miss out on a lot of potential talent because I can’t work with these guys.
“We have to be mindful of scheduling and make sure they can keep playing both sports. For most of them, volleyball is their ticket to playing in college.”
Kobrine’s future appears to be in volleyball, even though his father, David Kobrine, played college basketball at UCLA in the early 1980s.
Schachter said Ohio State, as well as other West Coast schools are interested in the 6-foot-2 Kobrine, whose club volleyball team qualified for the USA Volleyball Junior National Championships on Sunday. Last year, he was part of the 949 junior national championship winning team in the under-16 open division.
The next junior national volleyball tournament is in June. Kobrine can now focus on doing whatever he can for defending Pacific Coast League champion CdM on the basketball court.
“Hopefully I will be able to raise the level of my game,” Kobrine said. “We have a lot of talent, and I think we could [make a run at a CIF Southern Section Division 3A title]. We could do something special.”
Sam Kobrine
Born: May 26, 1998
Hometown: Newport Beach
Height: 6-foot-2
Weight: 165 pounds
Sport: Basketball
Year: Junior
Coach: Ryan Schachter
Favorite food: Hamburgers
Favorite movie: “The Shawshank Redemption”
Favorite athletic moment: The Sea Kings reaching the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 3AAplayoffs during the 2012-13 season.
Week in review: Kobrine led CdM to a runner-up finish at the Don Bambauer Memorial Holiday Classic at Kentfield Marin Catholic. He averaged 12.3 points per game during the four-game tournament.