Mullins Is Making the Most of Senior Season

Senior Julie Mullins of Alemany is salvaging her basketball career.

When the guard was called up for the playoffs as a freshman in 1997, she showed signs of being one of the region’s rising stars.

But Mullins was sidelined by a torn anterior cruciate ligament her sophomore season and had difficulty regaining her form as a junior.

This season, she has come off the bench for the Indians, ranked No. 3 in the region by The Times.

Last week, she scored a career-high 16 points in a victory over Notre Dame and added 14 points against Harvard-Westlake on Thursday, when the Indians clinched a share of their sixth Mission League title in seven seasons.

“It’s been very frustrating,” she said of her struggles. “I think I’m finally coming back, though. Better now than never.”

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Hoover is agonizingly close to qualifying for the girls’ playoffs for the first time in several years.

The Southern Section recently announced it will accept into the postseason any team with 10 or more victories. The Tornadoes are 9-13 with Pacific League games left against first-place Muir and second-place Glendale.

“We’re like the guy on an obstacle course,” Coach Jack Van Patten said. “We’re hanging on the wall and can’t quite kick our foot over the wall.”

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Westlake is also 9-13 and struggling for the victory that will send it to the postseason.

The Warriors have been hamstrung by the losses of starters Sammonia Ware and Tawny Thorp. Ware transferred to Marmonte League rival Royal at the semester break, and Thorp injured her left hand last week against Moorpark and has missed two games.

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Oxnard, Channel Islands and Camarillo shared the Pacific View League girls’ title last season and appeared primed to battle for it again.

“All year, everyone has talked about Oxnard, C.I. and Camarillo, that it was going to be a three-team race,” Coach Paul Needham of Rio Mesa said. “We agreed it would be a three-team race. We just didn’t agree on which three.”

After a slow start, few would have picked Needham’s Spartans to be one of those teams.

But after victories over Oxnard, Camarillo and traditional City Section power North Hollywood, Rio Mesa (10-12, 4-2) is in second place, 1 1/2 games behind first-place Oxnard (19-6, 6-1).

“I always thought we’d be playing our best at the end of the season,” Needham said.