January 21, 2004

     Anne-Claire Roesch doesn’t give the impression of being a very tough person. Her slender 5-foot-11 frame doesn’t seem capable of withstanding any type of serious pain or discomfort. Roesch has the look of a person who might feel more comfortable flipping through the pages of a book than flipping a ball into a hoop.
     She looks more like the academic all-star she is, a hard-working student who ended up being able to narrow her college choices down to Harvard and Amherst.
     But appearances can often be deceiving. Someone bumping into Roesch on the street would never know she was made of pure steel underneath.
     The talented senior forward has been a model of strength and consistency since joining the Staples High girls basketball team as a highly-touted freshman three years ago. The fact that she’s never missed a game in her four-year varsity career says a lot about her character. Injuries and illness mean nothing to her.
     The fact that she’s also scored in every one of them gives you a good indication of her skill. Hitting the scoring column in 80 straight games is no easy task.
     The fact that she actually planned it that way — now that’s really something.
     "I always looked pretty far ahead when I was younger," said Roesch, one of the top all-around players in the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference who passed the 1,000-point plateau with a 19-point effort against Harding on Jan 23. "That was always a goal of mine going into high school. I wanted to be able to play in every game and score in every game."
     Sounds brash. But it’s just confidence. It’s the natural result of standing 5-foot-6 in fifth grade and being athletic enough to hold your own in pickup games against high school kids as a sixth-grader.
     It’s the result of toughness, both mental and physical. Roesch has had a bad back for the past two seasons. She’s gotten sick during games. She’s had pulled muscles. Bumps and bruises. But nothing keeps her off the court.
     "Sometimes I feel like I’m not playing hard enough because I’m not getting injured," Roesch said. "I just have a high tolerance for pain and injuries. I usually just ignore it and move on."
     Setting lofty goals is one thing. Meeting them is another. It takes hard work. But that’s never been a problem for Roesch, a versatile athlete who leads the Wreckers in scoring (18.9), rebounding (8.5) and 3-pointers (15). The girl is driven to succeed in everything she does. She earned her way into Amherst by sustaining a 3.8 grade-point average, all while playing three sports. She’s also a standout volleyball player and a member of the outdoor track team.
     Roesch is currently sixth on the school’s all-time scoring list with exactly 1,000 points, most of which she scored despite playing out of position for three seasons. Roesch is listed as a forward, but has the responsibilities of a true post player due to the team’s lack of height.
     Roesch came to Staples with all the skills of a guard and quickly adapted to the low-post moves as a sophomore.
     "She’s playing center, but she’s not really a center," Staples head coach Ed Huydic said. "That just shows the motivation, the drive, the love and passion for the game. She’ll do what ever it takes to help the team win."
     By passing the 1,000-point plateau, Roesch joins an exclusive club comprised of Jessica Gelman (1,637), Stephanie Goettsche (1,485), Carolyn Center (1,277), Courtney Sutherland (1,272) and Lisa Brummel (1,177).
     She’ll have lived up to all the high expectations placed on her shoulders as a freshman. Roesch was so good as a youth player, her arrival at Staples was already being anticipated when she was in sixth grade.
     "Jessica Gelman was my mentor when I was in seventh grade," Roesch said. "To finally live up to all the hype and be put alongside her into that kind of elite classification is really quite an honor."
     Roesch’s grandfather, Joe Curran, was a longtime coach at Canisius College as well as a player at Penn State, so the bloodlines are there. Her mother, Dorothy Curran, was the one who put her into her first youth league in fourth grade. But it was Gelman (1991-93), arguably the best player in school history and a Harvard standout, who taught Roesch the finer points of the game and made her shoot for the stars.
     "I was very motivated even back then and she really took me under her wing," Roesch said. "She taught me a lot as far as shooting technique and ball-handling. She was the one who told me I could be a very versatile player because of my size and athleticism. She was always very encouraging. She always made me believe anything was possible and with hard work everything would pay off. And it certainly has."
     To attain her goals, Roesch has had to fight her way through things that would have had less determined athletes running for the bench. Roesch pulled a groin muscle against Darien two weeks ago but still finished with 22 points and 14 rebounds. Three days later she scored 27 points and the next game had 15 points and 11 rebounds despite being double and triple-teamed against Danbury.
     "She’s played hurt. She’s played sick," Huydic said. "The kid is just not going to miss a game. That’s just a tribute to who she is and really shows her heart and love for the game. I think that separates her from a lot of other student athletes."
     Roesch has also been playing with a pinched nerve in her back for much of the past two seasons, an injury which often requires her to get heat treatment before games and practices. But you’ll never hear her complain. Something like that wouldn’t stop her. Nothing short of a broken bone would keep her from doing what she loves. She even played in a game against McMahon with a 103-degree fever as a sophomore. She still scored 14 points in a 53-50 loss.
     "Pain just doesn’t matter to me," Roesch said. "What matters is being there for my team. I can’t stand sitting out. Sitting out of a game is something I would never think about doing."
     Even an attack of food poisoning during the second half of a game against Ridgefield this past December couldn’t get her out of the lineup. "I always get sick around Christmas break, but this time I think I ate a bad sandwich or something," she said. "I was out on the floor and all of a sudden I knew I was going to be sick. I ran to the bench and took myself out. Then I ran into the hall and threw up about six times. I came back in and no one knew what happened. I actually felt a lot better afterwards."
     Roesch also had to battle the self-doubt that comes with being the youngest player on a veteran team.
     "My freshman and sophomore years were not easy," she said. "You’re always going to make freshman mistakes, but the upper-classmen have no tolerance for that. Sometimes I would go home crying, but that always motivated me to work harder. It hasn’t been an easy road, but in the end, it’s only made me stronger."
     Roesch is a 1,000-point scorer not only because of her longevity — she’s only scored over 20 points 14 times in her career — and durability but also because of her versatility. Roesch can play any position on the court and play it well. She has the size to dominate inside and the touch to step out and hit a 3-pointer. She’s also one of the team’s top passers as well as a 70% foul-shooter for her career. Huydic often moves Roesch from one position to another depending on what defense the opposing team is playing.
     "There haven’t been many players I’ve coached who could do that," said Huydic, in his 24th season. "She’ll be playing one position then run to where another should be. She just goes where the open spaces are because she wants to create offense. And she does."
     The closest Roesch came to not scoring was a 1-point effort against Fairfield as a freshman. Her career high of 29 points came during a 73-17 win over New Canaan in the second game this season, one of 49 times she’s hit double figures.
     Roesch has also shown improvement each season, averaging seven points as a freshman, 12 as a sophomore and 17 as a junior. Over the past few games, Roesch has begun to take her game to an even higher level.
     "She’s playing like a senior who’s experienced and who’s hungry," Huydic said. "She will definitely end up in the annals as one of the great ones."
     In a perfect world, Roesch would be using her athleticism and strong ball-handling skills as a perimeter player. Her 62 career 3-pointers and sharp passing skills prove she’s more than capable of being a top-notch guard, the position she’ll most likely play in college.
     "When she’s hot she ranks with any outside shooter in the league," Huydic said. "If I had a bona fide center or a true big girl she’d be playing the three, getting loose on the break and chucking it from the outside. That’s what she does well and what she’ll be doing on the next level."
     Roesch has always had the quickness to play on the outside, but she’s always had the most height and always got stuck down low.
     "I was always a foot taller than everyone else when I was young," Roesch said. "Even the boys. So when I started playing in the Rec leagues, the coaches would see me and say, ‘Okay, you’re tall so you’re the center.’"
     The same thing happened at Staples. Huydic was hoping to use her talents in the way they were meant to be used, but had no choice but to switch her to the low post with no other height on the team. Roesch just adapted.
     "I never thought I would put her in the middle when she got to high school," Huydic added. "We started teaching her the low block moves as a sophomore and she picked everything up very quickly. She had natural instincts for the back-to-the-basket game. The drop step. The turnaround. The baby hook. She’s very astute. A natural. There’s a silkiness to her movements that can’t be taught."