Striving to be the best they can in the sport they love

    Three athletes who represent a cross-section of girls’ high school basketball players are quite different in stature, personality and skills. But they share the same desire: to be the best they can be for their respective schools and themselves.
    One has a college scholarship waiting for her. The other two are not necessarily preparing for hardwood careers at the next level, but they are fulfilling their desires to be the best they can be on the courts of their dreams.
    These are their stories:

Miss Determination
    For two years, Jodi Trevigne watched the boys at Holy Rosary High School play basketball, wishing the girls had a team on which she could participate. But that was not to be because, of the 36 girls enrolled at Holy Rosary, there was not enough interest to fill a roster and hire a coach.
    Sitting in the bleachers got to be too much, so she told coach Nick Accardo she wanted to join the boys’ team.
    “I decided last year to play because I love basketball, and I had nothing better to do,” the 5-foot senior said. “My mom didn’t want me to get hurt, but my dad said, ‘Do whatever you want.’”
    Accardo, the athletic director and head coach of all six sports the school offers to its 87 students, told Trevigne he would check the LHSAA rulebook to see if that was possible. “He said he couldn’t find a rule against it,” Trevigne said.
    Some of the seniors from the 2010-11 team balked when she showed up for practice. “I’m stronger than I look,” Trevigne smiled. “I lift weights and run around the Shell station (on the corner of Moss Street and Esplanade Avenue) to stay in shape.”
    Trevigne is a member of the varsity squad because there is no junior varsity, “unless an opponent has a jayvee team and asks us to play a jayvee game,” assistant principal Candice Schott said. That is when Jodi logs most of her minutes.
    In a Dec. 16 junior varsity game against Archbishop Hannan, the Bulldogs’ man-to-man defense placed Trevigne opposite a player nearly a foot taller. She harassed him as best she could.
    “He bumped and trapped me, which got me aggravated, so I started pushing him to keep him out of position,” she said. “It was funny. He was calling out, ‘Ref, ref, ref!’ Coach was worried that I’d get hurt, but it is what it is, so I don’t get stressed over it.”
    Trevigne, who wants to attend Nicholls State and study psychology, is quite independent. An 18-year-old, she drives herself to school from the West Bank.
    “It took a strong will to make the kind of decision that’s not popular,” said Schott. “She quietly, but strongly, made her place on the team, and she’s now accepted. And she’s not shy.”
    Trevigne has just three games remaining in her short career to get on the scorebook. “No, I haven’t scored all year. I’m short, so I’m a passer first,” she said. “I shot a free throw once, but I was nervous and missed.”
 

Kailyn the Intimidator
    On the other hand, Xavier Prep senior Kailyn Williams admits to standing 6-3 and has three career triple-doubles on her high school resume. That’s double digits in scoring, pulling down rebounds and blocking shots. She’s so talented that Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Fla., is giving her a full ride next year.
    “Kailyn started playing ball with us at about 6 feet,” said head coach Curtis Lawrence. “I knew she’d be tall. She had the fundamental skills, which had to be developed.” 
    She did, and now Lawrence bases the Yellowjackets’ offense around Williams. As a result, Xavier Prep has a 20-8 record, is undefeated in District 10-3A and is ranked among the state’s Top 10 Class 3A teams.
    Williams is one of five veteran starters, who, according to Lawrence, are capable of scoring 20 points at any time. But she is the hub of the offense and defense, and she accepts her role as the leader. Her zest started long ago.
    “When I was 5 (years old), I watched my brother dunk the ball, and that’s when my interest started,” she said. “I played organized ball in the seventh grade. When I came here, I was 5-6 as an eighth grader. Then I was 6-1 as a freshman.”
    Williams is the school’s career leader in rebounds, and her wingspan makes driving into the lane she protects folly. She’s that intimidating.
    Before the season ends, Williams has a few goals to achieve. “I want to be offensive and defensive player of the year, and I want to hit my goal of scoring 35 points in a game.”
    She may well be on her way.
 

The Little Sparkplug
    The Academy of the Sacred Heart (ASH) has one of the state’s premier volleyball programs, but the uptown Class 2A school has yet to distinguish itself on the basketball court. But one eighth grader has started to get the attention of Cardinal followers and opponents alike.
    She’s 4-foot-10, 14-year-old Lane Solow.
    Last year, coach Micki Andry gave Solow the responsibility of being the team’s point guard, to which she said: “I’m in the seventh grade. I can’t be the point guard with all those high-schoolers around me.”
    But Solow’s dad told her this was the opportunity she had been seeking and to take advantage of it.
    Solow’s basketball venture started as an infant. “My dad told people, ‘My daughter is going to play basketball,’” she said. “I have a picture of me wearing a diaper and holding a basketball.”
    She has been at Sacred Heart since nursery school. “In the fourth grade is when the reality hit,” Solow said. “That’s when I wanted to hit the buzzer-beating shot and be the leader.”
    When Andry left St. Scholastica’s staff to coach at ASH two years ago, she sought out Solow.
    “It was weird. This new teacher wanted to see me. I thought I was in trouble,” Solow said. “She told me she knew about me – that I was a good player. I thought, ‘How could you know about this?’
    “But coach Micki was right. I was going to be the best girl on the team. I didn’t believe it at first until the seniors started asking me, ‘How do you do this?’ Then I knew I wanted to play ball with them.”
    Solow has scored 189 points through 17 games. She had a double-double (11 points, 12 assists) against Ridgewood, and Andry expects Solow to become the school’s all-time leading scorer “sometime between her sophomore and junior year.”
    A realist at her tender age of 14, Solow knows her basketball career probably will end in five years.
    “I love basketball, but in reality I don’t need to play basketball in college,” she said. “My chances are slim.”
    But she drives a golf ball 220 yards and shoots in the low 90s at the Metairie Country Club, where her father is a member. And that just may be her ticket.