Alemany’s Girls Cook Up Another League Title, 50-24 : Basketball: Despite their poor first-half shooting, Indians cruise past Notre Dame.

Rob Dimuro coaches girls’ basketball at Notre Dame High, but his postgame comments sound more like those of a chef.

“You just can’t come out and play half-baked against Alemany, or they’ll cook ya,” he said, after his Knights had their lunch handed to them by Alemany, 50-24, Thursday night at College of the Canyons.

The Indians (20-4, 10-0) claimed the Mission League championship for the seventh time in eight seasons.

Alemany, which clinched a tie for the title earlier this week when it received a forfeit victory over Flintridge Sacred Heart, celebrated the unbeaten league season by donning T-shirts with a spin on a familiar phrase: “Just Did It.”

Senior guard Kelly McKay, who was named to The Times’ All-Valley team last season, has toiled in the shadow of teammates Samantha Rigley and Carly Funicello.

Against second-place Notre Dame (17-6, 8-2), however, it was McKay who scored seven points as the Indians took a 12-2 lead and didn’t look back. McKay finished with 13 points.

“You can’t even describe what she means to this team,” said Funicello, who scored nine points and blocked six shots. “She does so many thing for us.”

Rigley added 11 points and eight rebounds.

McKay was the key player for Alemany on Jan. 19, when the Indians had to scrape to get out of Notre Dame with a 45-33 victory.

But a couple of sub-par performances last week, including a six-point outing against powerhouse Brea Olinda on Saturday, left McKay with a little more to prove.

“I haven’t been playing that well,” she said. “I just thought I would give it my best overall effort and see what happened. We all had to prove ourselves.”

Early on, it looked like that mission would be accomplished quickly and easily. But after taking a quick 10-point lead in the first quarter, Alemany hit the skids and little else.

The Indians made only one of 11 shots in the second quarter. Notre Dame could not capitalize on its opponent’s cold shooting, making just two of nine shots.

The end result was a sluggish 20-8 Alemany lead at halftime.

Then Alemany went on an 11-2 run to open the third quarter.

“From 0-0 to 12-2 to whatever it ended up, we just didn’t bring it in any way, shape or form,” said Dimuro, who has guided the Knights this season to school records in overall and league victories.

However, it was the big one that got away from Dimuro, who served as an assistant to Alemany Coach Melissa Hearlihy in 1988-89.

The first bad sign for Notre Dame came several hours before the game, when starting center Brittany Grimes sliced her finger cutting an orange. She played with a heavily bandaged right hand and did not score.