Sun All-State basketball teams: Small-town girl comes up big for 2A titlists

Adam Candee

Tuesday, March 18, 2003 | 9:11 a.m.

Lizard races vs. lounge lizards and the Loon Festival vs. a city full of them -- the 3,700-person high desert town of Hawthorne offers a striking contrast to sprawling Las Vegas.

From those lifestyle points of view, Hawthorne seems a lot farther away than a six-hour drive to the northwest. Yet in terms of girls' basketball, Hawthorne's Mineral County High School is a lot closer to Southern Nevada than most know, especially in its finest female players.

The backcourt of seniors Sidney Orndorff and Delicia Jernigan led the Serpents to a 115-9 career record and four state championships (three in 2A, one in 3A). Yet choosing one as the Sun's girls' player of the year meant attempting to separate their cumulative achievements.

"I couldn't separate them because one makes the other one better," Mineral County coach Dave Gelmstedt said.

While both made huge contributions, Orndorff carried the extra burden of following in the cavernous footsteps of her sister, Ashley, one of Nevada's best-ever girls' basketball players. Sidney Orndorff lived up to those high standards and led Mineral County in scoring (21.7 ppg) and rebounding (10.7 rpg) in 2002-03, and those feats earned her our selection as player of the year.

A 6-foot guard, Orndorff used her rare combination of size and skill to help the Serpents not only dominate their class, but consistently challenge the larger schools as well. This season, Mineral County went 8-2 against 4A competition, losing only to McQueen and to state runner-up Bishop Gorman by one point.

Gelmstedt calls Orndorff his best defensive player, and also one of his best long-range shooters. Yet the coach still struggles to speak of Orndorff and Jernigan as individuals.

"Their leadership on the court, and just their hard style of play, their work ethic on the court, has earned them a lot of respect around the state," Gelmstedt said.

"They've had a lot of fans. They recognize that they're from a small school and they do get the media attention."

The attention did not weigh on Orndorff nearly as much as the pressure of completing a fourth consecutive state championship three weeks ago in Reno.

"Now I can relax," Orndorff told Nevadaprep.com. "We've been stressing a lot about that (four-peat). We were a little nervous before the game, but we got the job done."

Getting the job meant that Orndorff recovered from a shaky semifinal game to score 27 points as Mineral County rolled through White Pine, 58-45, to finish a 31-2 season.

Orndorff and Jernigan hope to play for the same college team, and that is how they are selling themselves to recruiters. Gelmstedt said UNLV and Portland (where Ashley plays) are in the hunt, and Nevada-Reno also has shown interest.