FSH Hoops Sends Message With Rout of Louisville

The girls basketball team kept the memories of its best non-league season in five years alive with an easy Mission League victory over Louisville Tuesday night. Now, the question is whether the Tologs will be able to continue their success against the rest of the league.

“We feel good,” said Vanessa Romero, who led all scorers with 26 points. “This is a good way to start off the league season.”

The Tologs (11-6, 1-1) trounced Louisville 59-38, putting some distance between themselves and the team they tied for last place with a year ago. Lana Haddad added 18 points for Flintridge Sacred Heart.

“Last year we weren’t as consistent as we are now,” Haddad said. “This year we know better how to come prepared every day. We have more experience playing with each other.”

The Tologs have another reason to hope for better things this year. They have now won 11 games for the first time since the 2004-05 season.

“This is a junior-senior group; they’ve been together for two full years,” Flintridge Sacred Heart coach Gino Pacella said. “We’re going to have to keep looking to play better.

"We could have been up by more if we’d been more intense running the offense properly.”

While it’s true that every head coach always sees room for improvement —even in double-digit victories — Pacella might be right that his team really will have to improve if it really wants to succeed in the difficult Mission League.

Romero, who hit six 3-pointers Tuesday night, certainly expects strong results in league.

“We’re expecting to do well,” she said. “We’re expecting a way better record. We definitely think we should be within the top three in league.”

Beating Louisville helps, but the true tests will come against Alemany, Notre Dame, Harvard-Westlake, and Chaminade. In six years (from 2004-2010), the Tologs went 7-5 against Louisville but 2-44 against the rest of the league.

Louisville coach Bob Dacorsi thought Flintridge Sacred Heart “definitely” looked good enough to meet Romero’s high expectations.

“(Romero) was phenomenal — she’s the difference-maker for them,” said Dacorsi, whose Louisville team was missing second-leading-scorer and leading rebounder Nicholle Aston.

“They’ve got a solid post player in Haddad, and a phenomenal point guard. They’re a good team.”

Stehanie Ramsden added eight points for the Tologs, who were without starters Dana Budzyn and Ivy Fitzgerald. Both should be back soon; Budzyn should be back in time for Thursday’s game at Alemany.

It took the Tologs almost no time at all to show their dominance Monday night. Halfway through the first quarter, the hosts led 14-1. Romero had two threes  during that run, and she had two more in the second quarter as the Tologs took a 31-13 lead into the intermission.

And after a short Louisville run had brought the visitors within 13, Romero scored 10 straight points on her own as FSH pushed the margin to 20 before eventually extending its lead to 30.

Indeed if Flintridge Sacred Heart really hopes to break into the top three in league, it will have to depend heavily on Romero, who missed much of last season with an injury. The high-scoring guard scored 35 last Saturday in the Tologs’ non-league win over Blair.

Romero said she depends on Haddad to create space for her on the floor.

“A lot of the time, she’s the one feeding me the ball when I shoot it,” Romero said.

And Haddad knows it’s not just a two-person game either.

“It’s a lot of people moving without the ball,” said the FSH junior. “Setting screens and being in the right place. And all of us just setting our mind right before each game, being prepared and seeing the game in our minds before it happens.”

So far, so good. Now bring on the rest of the Mission League.