Mount St. Dominic Girls Hoops Looks For Some Revenge In County Tournament With New Staff

The new improved Mount St. Dominic girls basketball team is looking forward to Feb. 7 in the Essex County Tournament quarterfinals with a new 'dynamic' and style of play.

The Lions will have an opportunity to avenge a loss earlier this season when they travel to third-seeded Arts in the county quarterfinal match on Feb. 7 at 1:30 p.m.

Sixth-seeded Mount St. Dominic has this scenario after taking care of 11th-seeded Montclair, 58-23, at home in Caldwell on Jan. 31 in the ECT first round.

With the victory over the Mounties, the Lions made it their third straight victory under a new head coach.

The Mount St. Dominic players found out on Jan. 21 that their head coach Brian Dorflaufer delivered a letter of resignation to the school.

And with that the school turned to assistant coach Kyla Ramseur to become the acting head coach for the remainder of the 2025-26 season. Ramseur played basketball for both Dominican (NY) University and Post University in Connecticut after graduating from Bloomfield Tech in 2016.

For the team they are taking it as a new life for the season that stood at 11-7 after the victory over Montclair.

"We definitely changed a little," said junior Bella Iannitelli about Ramseur and the new coaching staff. "We are trying to have a positive environment and get our energy up. We are using what happened to drive us in these games."

And sophomore Gia McArdle, the team's leading scorer, agreed with Iannitelli about the new energy that has sparked the Lions.

"I feel like we got to keep going," said sophomore Gia McArdle, the team's top scorer. "I think we have a new team dynamic and we have been growing as a team."

With the new coaching staff they have been instituted a new 2-2-1 full court press and it worked against the Mounties. The Lions were ahead 20-5 with a pair of free throws from Iannitelli to end the first quarter. McArdle was fed from a pass from freshman Sofia Gonzalez on a breakaway that put Mount St. Dominic up by 25 points, 37-12 at halftime.

"That was what we added in recent games with the new coaching staff," said Iannitelli. "We use a new press and it is working well. We emphasize trapping and getting the ball to get those fast break baskets like we did today."

With this new energy the Lions are looking to pull an upset on Feb. 7 at Arts. Mount St. Dominic suffered a 71-55 loss at Arts on Jan. 3. Despite the loss the Lions were only down by four, 30-26, at halftime against Arts.

"They started to press us and started to double team me that is how they got going," said McArdle against the Arts in the first game in the second half and added about the Feb. 7th contest. "If we can just break their press (ECT quarterfinal), it will be a very competitive game."

And Iannitelli knows another aspect of the game that Mount St. Dominic needs to improve on in the quarterfinal game.

"We really want to avenge that game," said Iannitelli. "We have been focusing on that we did not rebound well in that game. We will try to beat them on the boards and get going in transition."
In the victory over Montclair, the Lions had eight different players listed on the scoresheet.

McArdle led the scoresheet with 27 points that tied for her best this season against Mountain Lakes where she led the scoring in the 53-50 win over the Lakers.

In addition Iannitelli just missed collecting a double-double with 13 points and nine rebounds.
Before the win over Montclair, Mount St. Dominic defeated both Payne Tech, 69-39, and Wayne Hills, 56-44, on Jan. 24 and 29 respectively.

McArdle continued to be the team's top sources of offense with a game-high 19 points against Payne Tech. Both Iannitelli and sophomore Izzy DeLorenzo chipped in a dozen points each while freshman Hailey Root deposited 10 points. Freshman Sofia Gonzalez added nine points to the victory.

Against Payne Tech, Mount St. Dominic pulled away in the second quarter to take a 34-20 lead and would never look back.

And in the Wayne Hills clash, the Lions came from behind in the second half. Mount St. Dominic was down 26-19 at halftime.

But a 20-8 advantage in the third quarter propelled the Lions to the independent victory.
Iannitelli led the Mount St. Dominic comeback and finished with a double-double, 14 points and 12 rebounds. McArdle led the Lions in scoring with 20 points while Root and Gonzalez added eight and six points respectively.