Before the 2024 – 2025 season, our Girls’ Basketball program hadn’t seen a player score 1,000 points since Ann O’Sullivan, a 1982 graduate. Recently, however, we have been racking up the points: right on the heels of her teammate Charlotte Miller ’25’s December achievement, Vanessa Rodriguez ‘26 hit the milestone as well, scoring her thousandth point in a match against Chelsea on February 18th.
The amazing thing about Vanessa’s 1,000-point shot is that she wasn’t even sure it was happening at the time. Focusing on the game and the team play, she says she “honestly didn’t know” she was just a few points from the milestone. “It never changed the way she approached the game,” her coach, Tim Cain, says.
Recognizing that she was so close to 1,000, Coach Cain changed Vanessa’s position to set her up for a three-pointer in the play, and that’s when she suspected she might be shooting an historic shot. It didn’t rattle her, though. Coach tells the story: “She came off a double screen, hesitated, dribbled to the left and took a little step back: three.”
“She’s just so calm out there. She will probably go down as the most dynamic scorer in FGR history,” Coach Cain speculates.
For Vanessa, it was a happy moment. “I felt a lot of joy when all my teammates ran up to me and hugged me,” but she didn’t let it slow her down even a little: “I also felt relieved knowing that I got that milestone off my shoulders and now I have more goals to check off on my list.”
Goal-oriented since she was tiny, Vanessa recounts playing basketball on a mini hoop in her basement at the age of three. Playing outside with her dad, being “constantly in the gym” at older siblings’ practices, shooting and working on ball handling: it all helped her become the player she is today.
All that development happened alongside the person who may be the biggest key to Vanessa’s identity and success as a player: her twin sister, Ava Rodriguez ’26. “If you talk about Vanessa you have to include Ava,” Coach Cain says. “From the moment I saw them doing two-ball drills in elementary school I knew they were going to be special. They are everything you want in players as a coach.”
Ava suffered an unfortunate injury that sidelined her for her freshman year at FGR, but it didn’t break her focus on her favorite sport or her support of her sister. “I think playing with my sister and especially to be able to call her my twin is just so special, and no one really understands what it’s like because not a lot of people can say they have a twin,” Vanessa says. “It’s just so easy for us to communicate and know where each other is on the court.”
“We often get called ‘double trouble’ which I think is funny but so true,” Vanessa adds, relating how other teams often struggle to guard the twins because of their communication and natural teamwork on the court. For our Girls’ Basketball program, the Rodriguez twins are the opposite of trouble: next year, they’ll take on a joint leadership role on the team, and hope to lead the Irish to many more victories ahead.
Vanessa says that playing at FGR has been an “amazing” experience. “Coach Cain is probably the best coach I have played for; he prepares the team super well for any opponent that we play, he makes sure that we are focused in practice and he pushes me mostly on being a leader for the team and sharing my experience.” Focusing on leadership makes her a better player, she thinks, and she can’t wait to see what the team does next year, when she and Ava are seniors.
The Girls’ Basketball 2024 – 2025 season ended in the regional final against Tecumseh. “Obviously this season ended not the way we wanted it to,” Vanessa says, “But I know I can say I gave it my all, and through the wins there were a lot of smiles and happiness, and through the losses we took them as learning opportunities and got better from them.”
“I think a lot of people will count FGR Girls’ Basketball out next year because of all the talent we are losing, but I can say that we will be very good again and we will still have the same goals as every year. I think being the underdog is good sometimes.”
Teams who come up against FGR next year have a lot to look out for. Vanessa already has 1,000 points checked off her list, and “Double Trouble” is coming for more. As she puts it: “You know what they say: last one, best one.”