by Randy Angel

It’s been two years since Mikah Maly-Karros and Megan Richardson led the Mira Costa girls basketball team to the CIF State Championship finals, but at the conclusion of this year’s collegiate regular season, the sophomores ended up on the same team.

Continuing to show the dominance exhibited during their prep careers, Maly-Karros and Richardson led their respective college teams in scoring during the 2009-10 campaign with both being elected to the first team All-Big West Conference list.

After her freshman year, Maly-Karros transferred from Loyola to UC Irvine where the 6-foot-1 forward became only the sixth player from Irvine to make the first team. She led the conference with 13 double-double games while averaging 19.6 points and 11.2 rebounds per game.
Competing for CSU Fullerton, Richardson scored a team-high 15.4 points per game and 40 3-pointers. The 5-foot-10 guard was selected to the All-Big West Freshman team last year.

After splitting their contests during the regular season, 6th-seeded Fullerton and 7th-seeded Irvine faced each other in the opening round of the Big West Conference tournament. Maly-Karros tied a school record scoring 41 points — 18 in the first half and 23 in the second — while grabbing nine rebounds, but it wasn’t enough for the Anteaters of Irvine who lost to Fullerton 89-76. Richardson scored 17 points for the victorious Titans.

In the quarterfinals, Richardson scored 10 points against UC Riverside in a 73-54 loss to the Highlanders. ER