Smyth County Lady Wizards Come Home, Ready for More

CHILHOWIE, Va. – The Smyth County Lady Wizards had been there once before. Granted, they hadn’t played all that well the first time, but, with another year of experience, this time they were certain they could compete with any opponent they would face.

But they weren’t playing like it.

Early in their AAU national tournament opener on July 4 in Fort Myers, Fla., against the Irvine (Calif.) Xcelerators, the Lady Wizards were struggling, appearing to be every bit as nervous as they’d been a year earlier.

Coach P.J. Catron quickly called a timeout to settle his players down. In the huddle, he reminded them that they had prepared all season for that moment. He pointed out that, while the Xcelerators were a taller team, the Wizards had a decided advantage in quickness. Then, he told the girls to relax and play their game.

The Wizards took the message to heart, settled down and won. They moved into the championship bracket and advanced to the Final Four, eventually finishing fourth in the girls 12-and-under Division II.

“We played our hearts out,” center Alex Anderson said. “We know we can play with the best.”

Which is why, as good as finishing fourth in the nation appears, it wasn’t what the players had in mind.

“We’re proud of what we did this season,” forward Logan Tart said. “[But] we all think we should have won.”

The Wizards had no such illusions a year earlier, when they finished 16th in the national tournament’s consolation bracket. The girls hadn’t played well, and they knew it. But they came home with a good idea of what it took to be competitive and a determination to get to that point.

“These kids had never been out of this general area, and they were awed going to Connecticut,” Catron said. “They knew the implications of the tournament, and they were scared to death.

“They could have played much better than they did, and they were embarrassed. But they gained a lot of experience. We talked about what happened, and they used it for motivation. They went into the tournament this year with more determination. They were confident that they were capable of playing at that level.”

Catron, a 1983 Rich Valley High School graduate who played basketball for a time at King College, decided to start coaching when his daughter, Danielle, was five. At the time, she was playing in a local recreation league, and he was disappointed that so little attention was paid to fundamentals. He worried that she and her teammates would develop bad habits that would later be difficult to break.

Every drill Catron conducts in practice is rooted in fundamentals. His coaching philosophy starts with defense, and the girls press from start to finish. The team’s motto is: “94 feet for 32 minutes.”

The Wizards generate much of their offense off their press, so any player can be a big contributor. Catron has just one rule on offense: get the ball to the open player, no matter who she is.

“We play the entire floor for the entire time, with no possessions off,” he said. “In AAU, if you can’t press and you can’t break the press, people will eat you alive.”

Most of the girls live in Chilhowie, and several of them have played for Catron for years. But he has had to go outside Smyth County to fill the roster. Tart, from Bristol, Tenn., has played for the team for five years. Anderson, who joined the Wizards this season, is from Abingdon.

Rounding out the roster are Micah Untiedt, Ckareekeea Branch, Heather Crawford, Shaina Hamby, Lauren Kestner, Kristen Caudill and Gracelyn Tilson.

Catron has been criticized at times for not focusing on Chilhowie youngsters, but he answers by pointing out that it’s tough to find 10-12 local girls who are willing to make the
commitment necessary for the team to be successful. The Wizards practice three times a week and play in a tournament just about every weekend. Parents are asked only to put up the money for their daughter’s uniform.

“To compete, you really need a cross-section of an area,” Catron said. “Our area is small. When we go to state and to the nationals, we’re dealing with teams from much bigger areas. In order for us to compete, we try to draw from the whole area.”

Playing AAU basketball means travel – a lot of it. The Wizards play what amounts to their home games in a league in Johnson City, Tenn. They play in Martinsville, Va., and North
Wilkesboro, N.C., every fall, and they go to Boone, N.C., every spring. They’re regulars at Christiansburg, Carroll County, Abingdon and Bristol in Virginia and Pigeon Forge and Kingsport in Tennessee.

“We’ll go anywhere there’s a tournament where I think the competition is going to be what we want to see,” Catron said. “So the girls know what it means to travel.”

The Wizards opened the AAU nationals earlier this month by finishing 3-1 in pool play to advance into the championship bracket. They defeated the Carolina Express, 52-48, in the round of 16 and then knocked off the West Coast Lady Ballers, 39-33, in the quarterfinals.

A 42-41 loss to the eventual champion Maryland United Lady Ballers in the semifinals was bitterly disappointing. Smyth County led by 10 at halftime and by as many as 14 points in the game.

But the Wizards were undone in the second half by their inability to handle Maryland’s pressure: They threw away the ball on five consecutive possessions. All five turnovers led to Maryland baskets.

Emotionally drained, the Wizards then lost, 52-36, to the El Paso Sun in the game for third place.

Danielle Catron led the Wizards during the tournament with 102 points. Anderson chipped in 80 points and 73 rebounds. Caudill scored 58 points, and Tart added 49 points and 61 rebounds.

“We’re glad we did better than the year before, but we wanted to do more,” Danielle Catron said. “Now, our goal should be to win the championship. We’re maybe even more motivated than we were last year.”