LJ g BB: 'It's a commitment'

By Ed Piper

"It's a definite time commitment," said Darice Carnaje, second-year La Jolla High girls basketball coach, talking about her girls' need to work more if they're going to continue to improve, as she walked to the parking structure at UCSD after their opening game in the San Diego Classic in RIMAC Arena on campus.

Carnaje, as she has said before, commented, "The girls at La Jolla are more athletic than the ones I had at OLP" (where she coached successfully for several years). The difference right now is in the time and practice her players are willing to put in.

One roadblock is this summer's closing of the La Jolla High gym for repairs. While the boys team has opted to practice at the Jewish Community Center in University City and at 6 a.m. on Thursday mornings on the outside courts at Muirlands Middle School, Carnaje hasn't organized any practices. She doesn't have an easy alternative to the LJHS gym.

The good part Thursday, despite the shellacking the Vikings took at the hands of a capable team from Temescal Canyon, was the program's return to participation in summer league. Last year, at this time, the La Jolla girls were idle because Carnaje had been hired to take over the LJHS program only a short time before.

There just wasn't time to put together a slate of games and enough girls to list on a roster on the fly. "We could throw something together," said Carnaje at the time. But it wasn't going to be beneficial. She waited till official preseason practice in mid-November to begin drills, and her teaching abilities soon became evident, as Satori Roberson (now graduated) and others showed measureable improvement in their basketball skills over the course of the 2015-16 season.

But now Roberson is gone, and the short Vikings are trying to fill her rebounding void. Satori, even in her inexperience, was able to leap and reach over people, if need be, to grab rebounds. Carnaje doesn't have anyone filling that bill right now.

"We're going to have to do rebounding as a team," she said earlier this offseason. What the Vikings did show against an efficient Temescal Canyon team was some ability to break the press. Abby Ward, who had been absent during the recent spring league at Alliant University, helped bringing the ball upcourt.

With the final result 58-20, Carnaje pointed out, "They'll (her team will) play (in the tournament's 2A bracket) until they play a team of equal ability." Two games followed Friday, with more games both days of the weekend before a respite on Monday, the July 4th holiday.

"I love this tournament," the walking coach said, headed toward her car. "I used to bring my (OLP) team every year."

"It used to be at City College," she remembered. Now games are played in both UCSD's RIMAC gym and at Alliant University.

How did she challenge the players in practice at OLP when they needed to scrimmage against better players to improve their games? "I used to bring alumni" to practice, Carnaje said.

Besides Ward, other returners who played in La Jolla's return to summer action after a year's respite included Rebecca Saul, Imani Trinidad-Gallagher, Petra Eaton, and Katrina Kurtch. Missing were Kate Miller, Sina Anae, Si Young Kim, Ava Verbrugghen, and Sara Tyrus.