CIF GIRLS ROUNDUP

La Quinta 60, North Torrance 49--They’ll be teammates in the fall at UCLA, but La Quinta’s Amy Jalewalia and North’s Laura Collins got acquainted on the basketball court a few months early.

So if you could call Wednesday night’s 4-A quarterfinal a head-to-head matchup between Jalewalia and Collins, then Jalewalia got the best of it. She poured in 32 points--one shy of her season average--to lead La Quinta at home.

Collins, North’s 6-foot center, was frustrated by La Quinta’s triangle-and-two defense and ended up with 16 points. Collins was double-teamed most of the night by Heather Brannan and Janet Kanno.

“I didn’t know how we’d stop Collins,” La Quinta Coach Kevin Kiernan said. “But somehow we did.”

La Quinta (25-3) earned its first trip to the semifinals since 1985. North finished at 17-8.

North’s box-and-one defense held Jalewalia to only 10 points in the first half. Instead, La Quinta’s guards went to work from the outside.

A pair of set shots from the point by Kanno gave La Quinta an eight-point lead early in the second quarter, and the Lady Aztecs stretched the lead to 28-15 at the half.

With more freedom in the open court, the 6-2 Jalewalia scored La Quinta’s first 12 points of the second half. She made 11 of her 22 shots on the night, including a pair of three-pointers, and added 19 rebounds and six steals.

Collins finished 8-of-13 from the field and grabbed 16 rebounds. North also got 10 points apiece from guards Carolyn Hiramoto and Faith Hirayama.

“We had to go to the other side to get our shots tonight,” North Coach Richard Rosato said. “We had a hard time tonight getting the shots we wanted. It was just one of those nights.”