When Hampden girls basketball players started working out in a fall preseason league at the Bangor YMCA, the Broncos were a bit surprised with the kind of numbers they were getting from Johanna Ghiringhelli.

The Broncs knew the foreign student from Paraguay was a good athlete, as she became a standout on the Hampden soccer team. But basketball?

“She just went in and scored 25 points and went all out,” said senior captain Cheryl Morris. “We knew she was going to be our secret weapon.”

Ghiringhelli’s not a secret anymore, as she’s one of the top players in the Big East Conference, but the Broncs are hoping Friday’s opponent doesn’t know too much about her.

Hampden travels to Lewiston for a 7 p.m. game in what could be a key matchup for the Eastern Maine Class A standings.

Lewiston, 12-3, has lost to Messlonskee of Oakland, Skowhegan, and Cony of Augusta. The Devils were sixth in the most recent Heal Point standings.

Hampden will take a 13-2 record into the game. The Broncos have lost to Bangor and Mount Ararat of Topsham and they currently sit at third in the points.

“We know they have a lot of height so we know it’s going to be hard for our guards to match up,” Morris said. “We take a lot of pride in our defense, and that’s what we’re going to do, make sure we play tough defense, and let the shots fall.”

Morris said if the Broncs win the rest of their games (after Lewiston they’ll face Old Town and John Bapst of Bangor), they could go into the tourney as high as No. 2.

Ghiringhelli will likely play a big role in the effort. She has become one of the top players in the Big East, with the fourth-highest scoring average (about 11 points per game through Feb. 7). She is also averaging a Big East-high four assists per game.

The senior forward takes pride in her ability to penetrate defenses, which she sees a lot more often in her native country than in the U.S.

“Nobody really wants to do that here,” she said. “It makes you dangerous on the court. It’s more hard to defend when you have a lot of penetration.”

Her scoring is down a bit from what she normally puts up in Paraguay, but that may be due to adjusting to an offense where she sometimes has to pass the ball before she can shoot or penetrate.

It has also taken Ghiringhelli some time to get used to what she thinks is a less physical style of play here.

“I don’t want to screw up here,” she said with a smile. “I play with not that much confidence.”

Ghiringhelli said she has played basketball for eight years, pretty much year-round, and at several different levels, including with travel teams that took her to Ecuador, Chile, and Colombia.

The Eastern Maine Class A atmosphere at the Bangor Auditorium should be easy for Ghiringhelli to handle. She’s used to loud shouting – including some pretty offensive jeers – during free-throw shooting, for example.

“People in my country scream really bad things,” she said. “They’re never quiet.”

Sports summit on tap

Student-athletes and administrators from more than 150 high and middle schools around the state have been invited to participate in a March 9 summit at the University of Maine’s Orono campus.

The summit, which is being sponsored by the federally funded UMaine Coaching Maine Youth to Success initiative, will explore the qualities of positive, beneficial interscholastic sports programs.

The results of the summit will eventually be applied to a national model for sports programs. The final product of the project should be available by the start of the 2004-05 school year.

More information about the initiative is available by calling (207) 581-2492 or on the Web at www.umaine.edu/coachingtosuccess.