Two Good

Decisions, decisions.

Sierra Hauser-Price of Notre Dame High just doesn’t want to make them.

Among the region’s top multisport athletes, she would prefer to play basketball and run track in college.

“I don’t have a No. 1 sport,” she said. “It’s too hard to pick between them. I might end up having to, but I hope not.”

Several schools have been receptive to Hauser-Price competing in both sports.

She has visited Washington State and Oregon and has trips planned to Notre Dame, Michigan and Iowa State.

But her focus this week is on the Southern Section girls’ basketball playoffs.

Notre Dame (13-13) hosts Lompoc Cabrillo tonight in a Division III opener and would meet defending state champion Torrance Bishop Montgomery in the second round.

Hauser-Price, a 5-foot-8 senior guard, is averaging 17.3 points, down from her 24-point average as a junior when she was a Times’ All-Valley selection.

But her impact on the Knights has been just as great, says Coach Jason Perez.

“She makes all the players around her better,” Perez said. “You can easily see how badly she wants to win. She practices as hard as she plays in games.”

Hauser-Price broke Notre Dame’s career scoring and steals records as a junior, and has been building on them.

“I’m trying to smash them open so they’re not broken when I come back to visit Notre Dame,” said Hauser-Price, who has 1,624 points and 332 steals.

When she completes her fourth varsity basketball season, Hauser-Price will turn her attention to the track, where she ranks among the region’s best sprinters.

Hauser-Price will defend her consecutive Division III titles in the 100 and 200 meters and will attempt to reach the state finals for the fourth time in the 100 and the third time in the 200.

Watching nearby will likely be her parents, Louis Price and Fay Hauser-Price. At least one of them has been at every one of Sierra’s athletic events since she was in fourth grade.

“We’ve been very fortunate that things have worked out so we have been able to support her,” said Fay, a producer-director of nationally syndicated television programs.

Entertainment runs in the family.

Louis Price is a member of the latest version of the Temptations, the legendary Motown singing group of the 1960s and ‘70s.

Sierra probably won’t follow the same path, although she claims to have a “pretty good” singing voice.

“I’d like to be a lawyer,” said Hauser-Price, who has a 3.9 grade-point average. “Of course, I could become an entertainment lawyer.”

Why not?

She’s already drawn raves on the basketball court and in the court of popular opinion.

“She reminds me of a Marion Jones type,” said Coach Melissa Hearlihy of Mission League rival Harvard-Westlake, referring to the former Thousand Oaks High star who went on to help North Carolina win an NCAA women’s basketball title and captured five track medals last year at the Olympics.

“With her athleticism, every opponent knows who they have to stop.”

Hauser-Price is flattered by such praise but hopes to be remembered at Notre Dame as more than just a gifted athlete.

“I work hard at sports and the records, but I also work hard in the classroom and in other areas,” she said. “Hopefully, I’ll be looked at as a good all-around person.”