Rosary Comes Up Short in Battle on the Boards

After winning a Southern Section championship by the skin of its teeth, undersized Rosary learned Saturday that basketball is a game of inches.

Six inches here, four inches there . . .

Playing for its first Southern California girls’ basketball Division III title, Rosary came up waaaay short in a 72-50 loss to North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake.

Facing a team that started three players 6 feet or taller and unable to keep Harvard-Westlake off the offensive boards, Rosary (24-9) fell behind early and never mounted a serious challenge.

“Every shot they made was within three feet of the basket,” said Rosary guard Maggie Barnett, who scored 23 points and had three assists, steals and rebounds. “Even if we were contesting a shot, it’s not like we were truly contesting it because they were so tall.”

Rosary’s tallest starters, 5-11 senior Romina Bollini (eight points), and 5-10 sophomore Hayley Munroe (seven points) had five rebounds apiece.

Harvard-Westlake (28-5) will play in the state finals Saturday against Acalanes, a 37-22 winner over Loomis Del Oro.

Harvard-Westlake, which lost to Mission Hills Alemany in last year’s regional final, redeemed itself by outrebounding Rosary, 55-31. The Wolverines opened a 15-5 lead, eight of those points coming after offensive rebounds.

Rosary trailed after a quarter, 19-11. The Royals made a little run to start the second quarter, pulling to 21-16, but the Royals went more than four minutes without scoring and Harvard-Westlake stretched its lead to 29-16.

“I was concerned at halftime [with a 31-20 lead] because I thought we should have been up by 20,” Wolverines Coach Bryan Taylor said. “We had a ton of missed layups.”

But that’s no problem when someone is there to clean up.

Omelogo Udeze, a 6-2 senior forward, scored 23 points and had 17 rebounds--nine offensive--to lead Harvard-Westlake. Rolake Bamgbose, a 6-2 junior, scored 10 with 12 rebounds, seven on the offensive end.

Harvard-Westlake had 27 offensive rebounds, 28 on the defensive end. Rosary had 14 and 17.

“They came out more aggressive than we thought they would be,” Barnett said. “Their one post [Udeze] was dominant. She got on a roll and we didn’t do any post defense on her.

“They weren’t making their first shots, but they crashed the boards and we didn’t do our job.”

The Wolverines led by as many as 30 in the fourth quarter.

Barnett couldn’t say which was more frustrating, the lack of rebounding or the way Harvard-Westlake broke through Rosary’s press.

That press is how Rosary had beaten taller, more athletic teams in the section finals and regional semifinals by forcing turnovers and wearing teams down.

“They broke our press and barely broke a sweat,” Barnett said. “Usually if we don’t get turnovers off the press, we at least tire people out, but it never affected them at all.”

Udeze was at the center of Harvard-Westlake’s press break.

“[Udeze] handled the ball better than I thought,” Rosary Coach Rich Yoon said. “We weren’t at our best. We weren’t anticipating. They were ready for us.”