By Pete Borello

Courtesy of the Roark family

When the East Bay Xplosion lost its point guard to a knee injury prior to the Amateur Athletic Union National Championships, the under-13 girls basketball team didn’t panic.

That’s because the Xplosion knew it could turn to Los Altos resident Daniela Roark, the team’s starter at shooting guard, to fill the void.

“We knew Daniela would do a good job at the point,” Xplosion coach Mark Anger said. “She’s a very, very good player; she plays beyond her years.”

Just as her coach expected, Roark shined at the 86-team national. She helped lead the Xplosion to the Final Four of the tournament, held July 13-22 in Cocoa Beach, Fla.

Although the Xplosion bowed out in the winner’s bracket semifinals - losing 51-45 to the defending national champion Air Oklahoma Stars - its fourth-place finish was the best any girls club team from Northern California has ever attained. The Xplosion won seven of its nine games in Florida.

Roark said she’s pleased with how she and her team performed at the national. And she has no complaints about having to switch positions.

“I was kind of happy because I was the point guard on my other team,” said Roark, who prior to this season played for Metro San Jose. “It’s good to play it again. You get to dribble the ball more and I like to handle the ball a lot.”

Roark said her best game of the tournament was the Xplosion’s opener against the 12th-seeded Houston Hot Shots. She went 5-for-6 from the field and sank four three-pointers.

Against top seed Air Oklahoma, Roark hit a trio of three-pointers and pulled down six rebounds while contending with a suffocating full-court press throughout the game.

“She did a great job of handling the pressure,” Anger said. “She also shot the ball well and scored inside and out.”

This marked Roark’s second appearance at the national in three years. In 1999 Metro qualified in the under-12 division, but the team was eliminated early by the Xplosion. The two players Metro had no answer for - twin towers Courtney and Ashley Paris - are now Roark’s teammates.

“It’s a lot better to play with them,” Roark said of 6-foot-3 Courtney and 6-1 Ashley, the daughters of former San Francisco 49ers lineman Bubba Paris. “None of the other teams had players taller than them.”

Roark was able to take advantage of the twins’ height by throwing them lob passes inside the key.

“They made it a lot easier,” Roark said. “When I was in trouble, I’d just lob it to them.”

The Xplosion qualified for the national by winning the Pacific Association Championship in Sacramento over Memorial weekend. Along the way, the Xplosion convincingly beat the favored Bay Area Bulldogs twice.

The Xplosion built up its confidence in May at a tournament in Los Angeles, where it soundly defeated four of that area’s top five teams - including one squad that placed seventh at last year’s nationals.

“They are a great group of kids - the best I’ve ever been associated with,” Anger said of the Xplosion. “They played very well as a unit.”

In preparation for the national, the Xplosion also defeated some local varsity club teams, including Mitty and Pinewood.

Roark will attend Pinewood in the fall and is expected to make the school’s varsity basketball team.

In June, Roark graduated from Blach Junior High, where her basketball teams never lost a game in which she played.