Romness Learns Lesson, Then Teaches Jaguars One of Her Own

An evening that began as a "teaching moment" for McLean's Andie Romness, concluded as a learning experience for the Falls Church Jaguar defenders tasked with trying to defend her.

Romness, who was benched to start the game after missing two practices, led the McLean Highlanders (1-2) to their first win of the year, a 39-27 home court triumph over Falls Church (0-3), scoring 19 points in just three quarters, including 14 points in the second half.

"It was a teaching moment for Andie, and our junior guard, Caroline Gray, they both missed practices for non-basketball reasons so I sat them both in the first quarter," said Mike O'Brien, McLean's coach.   

Despite the first quarter absence of Romness and Gray, who ultimately accounted for 26 of their team's 39 points,  McLean started strong, playing tenacious defense and building a 17-8 lead before Falls Church found its rhythm in the second quarter.  Kayleigh Boveri, a junior guard who led the Jaguars with 12 points, drained two picture perfect jump shots to shave the lead to 19-18 just before the half.

The Jaguars took their first lead of the contest with six minutes left in the third quarter on a sweet little Magic-Johnson-esque hook shot by junior forward Cyndi Gordon, who finished the night with 10 points for Falls Church.  The lead then changed hands five more times as both teams took turns sporting one point leads.  

But on each of the three occasions when the Jaguars nudged out to a lead, Andie Romness countered by taking the ball hard to the hole, drawing fouls and sinking free throws- 14 of them in all, including 12 in the second half.  Sophomore forward Lexi Slotkoff, playing in just her third varsity game for McLean, was particularly fierce on defense, going after loose balls as though they were bags of gold coins.

With four minutes left in the game, and Falls Church up 26-25, Romness missed a short jumper, but muscled in to grab her own rebound and followed with a layup that gave her team a lead it would not relinquish.

"I just really focused, we weren't scoring, so I was thinking someone had to," said Romness after the game. "So I just decided to drive and see what happened, and I got fouled almost every time."

McLean finished the game on a 13-2 run, with all 13 points coming from their two players who had been disciplined for missing practices in favor of soccer games.

Romness has a full scholarship to play soccer at The University of South Carolina next year and doesn't envision playing basketball in college, but her coach is happy to have her on the court for one more year- even if he'd prefer that she focus on basketball.

"Andie's a soccer player by nature, and this is only the 6th day she's had a ball in her hands,  but she was able to get to the line, and was able to draw contact, and that was one of the things that got us the win."

While O'Brien was pleased to see his team earn its first victory of the season, he also saw plenty of room for improvement.

"It's always good to get the first win- we would have liked to have had it sooner, but we're a young, inexperienced team," he said. "We play North Stafford next and then we start our district play against Langley, and we'll find out if we can get rid of our youthful inexperience in a week."

And while O'Brien isn't sure if his team will be ready for Langley, he's pretty certain of one thing.

"I don't think the girls are going to be missing any more practices," he said.