18-Point 4th Quarter Lifts Louisville, 36-27

The Louisville High girls’ basketball team played Notre Dame 2 weeks ago in the Thousand Oaks tournament and beat the Lady Knights by 17 points.

Not much has changed since.

In a rematch Thursday night in a San Fernando Valley League opener, the Royals topped the Lady Knights, 36-27, at Louisville.

But something seemed out of place. “It was our first game all year in this gym,” Louisville Coach David Bryce said. “We practice here but it was like we were playing in a strange place.”

Notre Dame (3-10 overall) led, 5--0, after the first quarter as the lack of familiarity seemingly affected the Royals, who missed the mark on all 11 of their field-goal attempts. Still Bryce was confident of his team’s ability to come back.

“This team’s image is one of tough man-to-man defense,” Bryce said. “They know that when the ball doesn’t go in, they can come back with tough defense.”

Louisville toughened in the second half. Trailing, 10-7, at halftime, the Royals (6-7) started making the shots they had missed in the first half. Danielle Bryce, who finished with a game-high 15 points, scored 7 third-quarter points and Suzie Shimoynia’s 3-point shot at the buzzer tied the score, 18-18.

Louisville, which doubled its point total in the fourth quarter, took the lead for the first time 30 seconds into the period when Mary Hudson took a pass from Tina Meglio and scored an easy layup.

Notre Dame regained the lead on 2 foul shots by Chrissi Burnap, but Louisville put the game out of reach with a 7-2 scoring run.

Felicia White led Notre Dame with 11 points.

“It was as if the two teams were playing that game all over again,” said Bryce, referring to the teams’ previous meeting.