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En guard: Moore led by D-I backcourt
Photo by Dylan Butler
Jamie O’Hare would have been the lone senior, the top returning player at St. Peter’s, but the perennial powerhouse closed in June and the guard transferred to archrival Moore Catholic.
O’Hare wasn’t sure how she’d be received and the Lafayette-bound guard certainly didn’t want to overstep her bounds with her new teammates.
“I thought it was going to be awkward and difficult to fit in with everybody, but it wasn’t at all,” she said. “They opened their arms to us and it was pretty easy to come in.”
O’Hare instantly formed a backcourt partnership with Christina Rubin, who signed a National Letter of Intent with Iona College, becoming one of the top one-two punches in the city.
“Jamie brings a lot to the table,” Moore coach Rich Postiglione said. “Besides the obvious, the talent and God-given gifts between the lines, she gives Christina a partner. You need a couple of upperclassmen to set the tone.”
Rubin, a sharp-shooting guard, certainly appreciates O’Hare’s arrival.
“It takes a lot of pressure off me,” Rubin said.
Postiglione said O’Hare will be asked to be more of a floor general than she was at St. Peter’s and she has already become a perfect compliment to Rubin, a tenacious competitor.
“I coached almost 20 years on the boys side, coached players who went on to be pros, but Chris is one of the greatest player I’ve ever coached not only in terms of what she can do on the court, but also her approach,” he said. “She’s all about team, all about winning.”
While the Mavericks have a Division I backcourt, Postiglione said the rest of his team is comprised of “either new kids or kids who have to step up into a much larger role this year,” he said.
Rubin is the lone returning starter from a team that went 71-11 in the last three years and won the Archdiocesan title – beating O’Hare’s St. Peter’s squad – before losing to St. John the Baptist in the CHSAA Class AA state tournament.
Taylor Robinson is a ball-magnet who saw quality minutes the last two seasons, Tori Crea, also a transfer from St. Peter’s, is a quality defender, Christina Rubin’s sisters Victoria is a junior who is returning from an ACL injury and Gabriella is a promising sophomore.
The Mavericks best size come from a trio of freshmen – 6-foot-3 Dina Montrechuk and 5-foot-10 twins Christa and Alissa Lebers.
“The bottom line is we’re small, undersized and that concerns us a little bit, but we’re talented and we can get after you,” Postiglione said. “We have a smaller margin of error because we’re not deep and we’re undersized.”
Even though he said the Mavericks aren’t the same team that stepped on the court the last three years, Postiglione knows the bulls-eye is still on his team’s back.
That’s nothing new for O’Hare.
“I’m pretty sure the whole Island is expecting a lot from us,” O’Hare said. “But I’m not worried about it because I think we’re going to be fine.”
Contact Dylan Butler at dbutler3@cablevision.com
Follow him on Twitter: @Dylan_Butler
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