Los Gatos High School girls basketball coach Sara Quilici Giles remembers the first time she saw Nicole Steiner, then a seventh-grader at Fisher Middle School, play the game.
“I originally thought she was a point guard,” said the coach about Steiner, who was playing center. “She had the ability to grab rebounds, take a few dribbles and throw it up-court. She already had the ability to see the court in such a unique way.”
“Unique” is an apt description of Steiner, now a 6-foot-1 senior at Los Gatos. In basketball alone, she holds 10 school records and was named Most Valuable Player or Co-Most Valuable Player in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division her last three seasons. She was also a first-team all-leaguer as a freshman.
But that’s just part of her athletic story. Steiner is also a standout in volleyball and in track and field. She was an all-De Anza Division player in volleyball and has advanced to the California Interscholastic Federation state track and field championships in the shot put her first three high school seasons. She is currently competing in that sport’s regular season.
Los Gatos High athletic director Ken Perrotti said Steiner is the first four-year varsity starter in three sports in 30 years.“I always loved doing multiple sports,” said Steiner, who played junior varsity softball as a freshman at Los Gatos in addition to track in the spring season. “I liked softball; it was fun. I split it with track and I said, ‘I can’t split it next year,’ so I decided on track.”
The Steiner family is steeped in Los Gatos High School athletics. Nicole’s older siblings, Trent and Katie, played three sports at Los Gatos High School. Her father and mother, Bill and Kerry, were also athletes at LGHS.
“One of my hands-down favorite things about Los Gatos is that so many of the kids, their parents went to LG. There is so much LG love and support,” said Nicole.
Steiner has signed a letter of intent to play basketball for Cal State Fullerton, and Los Gatos has certainly felt her impact in that sport.
In her freshman season, she was the leading scorer (18 points) in the Central Coast Section Division I championship game against Homestead, and she also grabbed 12 rebounds and passed for four assists. In the first round of the CIF Division II Northern Regional playoffs, she stole an inbounds pass with eight seconds left in the fourth quarter and drove for the winning layup in a 52-51 victory over Lick-Wilmerding-San Francisco.
That season, Steiner also set the school girls basketball record for rebounds in a game (25). She increased that to 26 in her sophomore season, which is still the record.
“That was something I definitely was confident in,” Steiner said about rebounding. “Throughout my four years, I’ve definitely tried to work on and improve my shooting and dribbling and confidence.”
Mission accomplished. Besides the rebounding record, the girls basketball records she holds at the high school include:
- Most points in a game—38 (set against Leland her sophomore season on Dec. 30, 2022)
- Most blocks in a game—eight (set against Pinewood her junior season on Dec. 13, 2023)
- Most assists in a game—10 (this season against Milpitas on Jan. 4)
- Most rebounds in a season—377 in her junior season, which broke her own record.
- Most points in a career—1,568
- Most field goals in a career—612
- Most rebounds in a career—1,391
- Most blocks in a career—193
- First triple-double in program history—Jan. 4, 2025 against Milpitas (16 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists). She was named Cal-Hi Sports Northern California Girls Basketball Player of the Week for that accomplishment.
Also, her rebound records are higher than the records for the boys team.
The Los Gatos girls team has thrived in the past four seasons. It was undefeated in the De Anza Division the last three seasons and played in the CCS Open Division playoffs in 2023 and 2024 before winning the CCS Division I title in 2025.
Quilici Giles said Steiner’s work ethic makes her a good basketball player.
“She’s a very hard worker and she just doesn’t stop. I watched teams try to box her out; they send two or three people and she still gets rebounds,” Quilici Giles said. “She does not quit. It does not matter what team you put her on in practice, she wins. You could put her on a team with all (junior varsity) kids … and she would find a way to win. She picks up her teammates and makes them all better.
“Nicole is … a once-in-a-lifetime athlete. But she is a better person. I will miss her as a person.”
Digging deep
In Steiner’s freshman volleyball season in 2021, Los Gatos won the De Anza Division title and advanced to the CIF Division I Northern Regional semifinals before being edged by No. 1 Oak Ridge-El Dorado Hills in five sets. In 2023, the Wildcats played in the CCS Division I championship match after placing second in the De Anza Division. Steiner was named the Outstanding Junior of the Year in the SCVAL De Anza Division.
This past season, Los Gatos competed in the CCS Open Division playoffs and then upset Clovis West-Fresno, the No. 2 seed in the CIF Division I Northern Regional playoffs, in the first round. As a senior, Steiner finished second for the Wildcats in kills (220), blocks (41) and digs (208). She was selected as the Outstanding Senior in the De Anza Division.
In track and field, Steiner has improved her best mark in the shot put every season. In 2022, her personal record of 39 feet, 5 inches—the top mark in the section that year—was set at the CCS semifinals before she placed second in the CCS finals. As a sophomore, she set a PR of 41-11¾ at the CCS Top 8 Invitational, which ranked second for the season in the CCS. She also placed sixth at the CIF state championship final that year with a mark of 41-3 ¾ on her last attempt.
Last year, her best mark of 43-6 occurred in the CCS semifinals, and she also placed second at the CCS finals. In addition, Steiner won the event all three years at the SCVAL championship meet.
Kent Kappen, the Los Gatos throws coach who has directed Steiner in those events since she was in middle school, wrote in an email to the Los Gatos Weekly Times, “When you boil it down, her greatest strengths in the throws come from all the amazing athletic activities she does outside the ring. Of course, she spends countless hours each week practicing her throwing craft.
“Moreover, having amazing athletes as parents helps from a support, physical and psychological standpoint, but all the sports she has done…from baseball, volleyball, basketball and track and field along with the intense training that comes from all of those, have been very complimentary to the activities she does in the throws.”
As for baseball, Steiner played in the Los Gatos Little League in her youth and was an all-star for three of her four seasons.
Despite her record-breaking high school career, Steiner said she had one main goal when she started: “making varsity as a freshman. I don’t even think I thought too much about starting.”