Taking Two Roads to Playoffs

It’s not hard to predict that Troy will be an Orange County power the next two seasons.

The Warriors are the county’s only undefeated team and should only get better. They will lose only one senior starter from this year’s team, and the cavalry has already arrived.

Troy has four players in its program--two juniors and two sophomores--who played last season at other Southern California schools.

Another, senior Vanessa Yonamine, arrived as a sophomore with her now-graduated sister, Tammy, who was on last year’s team that played for the Southern Section Division II-AA championship.

Troy is this season’s most extreme example of what appears to be a growing pattern of transfers among the county’s top girls’ basketball programs.

“It seems like free agency,” Edison Coach Dave White said.

Here’s why. Eight teams in the final top 10 poll have transfer students. Five of the top six teams have had players leave. Nine of the top 10 teams (Esperanza the exception) have been affected in some way, and only one of the nine seeded county teams in the playoffs--Capistrano Valley in Division V-AA--hasn’t been directly affected.

“This is my 14th year coaching and I’ve seen it all,” said Troy Coach Kevin Kiernan, whose team moves up to Division I-A this year. “To me, it evens out in the end. I think it goes in cycles and it all works out eventually. The scenario is there for more movement. As a coach, I hope it doesn’t get worse; I like to see people finish what they start.”

That scenario includes revised open enrollment rules that have made it easier for students to change schools. They’re not supposed to change for athletic purposes, but Kiernan said “it would be naive” to think that doesn’t enter into some decisions, especially when there has been a conflict between coach and player or parent.

“I think they look at the total package--sports, academics and the social atmosphere,” Kiernan said. “They’re so networked now by AAU [club teams], it’s almost impossible for the good girls to not know each other.”

Girls, especially, have been more mobile in recent years.

“My first stint [coaching girls’ basketball from 1980-87], there wasn’t all this going on, all the school-hopping,” said White, who returned to the program in 1995 and has won two Sunset League titles since. “But girls’ sports has come a long way. There’s more publicity and more scholarships, and they’re doing what the guys used to do.”

The guys still do it. Nine of the county’s top 10 boys’ teams have been affected by someone coming or, conversely, going.

“I think it’s just as big in girls’ basketball as it is in boys’,” said Gary McKnight, coach of the top-ranked Mater Dei boys’ team. “But a lot of good programs lose players because kids realize they can’t play at that level or they aren’t willing to put in the work.”

Westminster girls’ Coach Dick Katz, whose team went 21-5 with home-grown players, says the off-season club teams affect the makeup of high school teams. McKnight says some club coaches push players to certain schools.

“It’s only going to get worse,” Katz said. “[Students] want to play with their friends from the travel team. They want a scholarship, they want a championship, the notoriety. They want it all.”

Players aren’t stupid. They are attracted to good programs and good players. But moving isn’t always easy.

Senior Melanie Cherney averaged almost 15 points for Edison last year when, in midseason, she left one ranked team for another. She then transferred from El Toro to Huntington Beach the day after losing in the semifinals. This year, she averaged nine points for the Oilers.

“I don’t think when I transferred I realized how hard it was going to be,” she said. “It’s not for everybody. . . . Knowing what I know now, I would consider a lot more things before I made the decision.”

Brea Olinda won a state title last year, but four players left. Gayle Sonoda went to Rosary, and Katie Hardeman, Michelle Pietka and Kiana St. Laurent went to Troy. It was Brea that beat Troy in last year’s section championship.

Hardeman, a 6-0 junior guard, has made a huge impact along with Whittier La Serna transfer Stephanie Schilling, a 5-10 sophomore forward.

Hardeman, whose family lives in Brea but whose father coaches Troy’s boys’ team, averaged 11.2 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.5 steals. Schilling averaged 11.8 points. Both played critical roles in Troy’s high-pressure defense that dominated teams this season.

Hardeman said her parents suggested she leave Brea because she wasn’t having fun and because her older sister, Heidi, “had the time of her life at Troy and it wasn’t happening for me at Brea. . . . It’s a different feeling there [at Brea].”

There’s probably more inherent pressure to win at Brea, with six state titles and 10 consecutive section titles, than any other girls’ program.

“If I wanted to be a star,” Hardeman said, “I could’ve gone to a really bad school.”

Instead, she helped Troy rise to No. 3 in the county rankings, No. 7 in the section.

Schilling’s family moved from Whittier because she was so impressed by the program when her team played against Troy last season. She said her parents bought a condo in the school district.

“My school wasn’t very good and we decided to come here, where it’s higher intensity, better coaching, a better league--we thought it would be a better experience,” Schilling said. “My family picked up and moved for me. I have really nice parents.”

Schilling also knew two Troy players through club ball.

This year’s other transfers haven’t had the impact, though Kiernan expects them to next year. Pietka, a 5-10 junior guard, suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament and hasn’t played. St. Laurent, a 6-2 sophomore, has been dogged by injury and illness.

Yonamine, a 5-5 guard, transferred from Mater Dei two years ago after her family moved from Garden Grove to be closer to her father’s work in Placentia. She is the county’s third-leading three-point shooter behind her teammates, senior Kristin Arnold and freshman Alicia Komaki.

Home-grown sophomore Veronica Johns-Richardson, the county’s fifth-leading scorer, still has two years of high school left.

With Pietka and St. Laurent poised to contribute next season, Troy will be strong for some time to come.

Unless someone transfers.