A Very Prolific Quartet

Scoring 1,000 points in a career is notable for a high school player, but the Rim of the World girls’ basketball team finished its season with four who accomplished the feat: Jessica Jennings scored 1,393 points, Kirsten Muir 1,213, Cassandra Markovich 1,022 and Stephanie Hanifan 1,013.

“I don’t know if any team in California has had four players with 1,000 points,” Coach Karen Rudolph said, a sentiment confirmed by Mark Tennis, editor of Cal-Hi Sports.

“In 25 years that Rim has competed in girls’ basketball, we’ve never had one 1,000-point scorer, and that means you’ve played a solid three, if not four years and averaged about double-figures all four years.”

Markovich and Hanifan needed big games in the regular-season finale to get close. Markovich scored a season-high 20 against Serrano and Hanifan scored a career-high 29. They went over 1,000 points in a second-round Southern Section playoff game against Garden Grove Pacifica, but were eliminated by Newbury Park in the Division III-AA quarterfinals.

Hanifan is a 5-foot-10 center/forward, the only one of the group who isn’t a guard. She played three seasons on varsity, unlike her teammates, who each played four. She began the year with 616 points, and was the last to reach the plateau.

“Yeah, I felt a little pressure,” Hanifan said. “We all discussed it as a team a few games before. [The Serrano game] was our senior night, and we were discussing how we thought it would be an accomplishment for the whole team if all four of us got it.”

Lone Pilgrim: Amber Cunningham is a one-woman scoring machine for Division V-A power L.A. Pilgrim. Cunningham has 2,034 points in her career, and with a 67-43 win over Hemet Baptist Christian on Friday, she has won four section titles in four seasons.

“She’s a very unselfish player,” said Coach Kevin Blue, pointing to Cunningham’s career totals: 2,084 points and more than 420 assists.