While there has been a bit of turnover at the top of the boys basketball rankings this season, the girls polls are showing that many of last season’s top teams are still among the strongest in the state. With four of five defending state champions looking like title contenders yet again (and one, Class 3A’s Carrollton, having a strong season despite being outside the top-10 rankings), and a few dynasties brewing, girls basketball in Georgia seems to have become a sport of powerhouses. Here is a look at the top teams that are back for more in ’10.
CLASS 5A
Redan this season has not only been a state power, but a national power, rising as high as No. 7 in the ESPN Rise high school poll. The Lady Raiders have as a good a chance as any No. 1 team to be top-ranked wire-to-wire this season, as they have seldom been challenged. One of the closer in-state games the team has played came last Friday, when Redan held on for a 61-55 victory over a ranked Douglass squad. Point guard Alisha Andrews and forward Nia Evans, in addition to a talented surrounding cast, will be tough to stop in March and should be the runaway favorite to repeat in Class 5A.
Parkview is one of the teams that might have something to say about Redan’s dominance. The Lady Panthers hung with Redan in last season’s semifinals defeat, and many believed Parkview was clearly the second-best team in the state as Marietta struggled mightily in the championship game against the Lady Raiders. Versatile forward Lauren Coleman is back for a run at a title.
This season, however, many feel that Norcross is in the same league as the two aforementioned teams. Adding talented senior Briana Jordan to the mix (she came over from Greater Atlanta Christian in the offseason), the Lady Blue Devils should take home the Region 7 title. The team hasn’t lost to a Georgia team and has defeated a slew of nationally ranked opponents. Norcross finished last season ranked in the top 10 of the polls and has only improved.
CLASS 4A
Southwest DeKalb is trying to stake its claim to the “dynasty” tag after sweeping through the playoffs two years in a row to win 4A state titles. Kathy Walton’s team is led by Florida commit Kayla Lewis, who has been an integral part of the last two state championship teams and should be able to lead her team to another one if they get the breaks. However, at the moment, it is SWD’s ’09 finals opponent that seems to be the favorite right now.
Fayette County lost guard Tessah Holt to Florida, but still has athletic post player Anma Onyeuku to lean on. Fayette is currently ranked No. 1 in all the polls thanks to a very strong 18-3 overall record. The team’s only losses are a six-point defeat to Redan, and two losses to nationally ranked teams from the Northeast. FC has absolutely obliterated the competition, otherwise.
CLASS 2A
With 3A displaying the effects of talent turnover and seeing some new teams step up, we skip to 2A, where the Buford Lady Wolves are still winning at an impressive clip despite losing center Blanche Alverson, the Class 2A player of the year last season, to Auburn. The team is still the favorite to win it all at this point, as some younger players, including high-scoring guard Andraya Carter, have stepped up big-time. In Region 6-AA, Greater Atlanta Christian will likely be the only challenge between Buford and a No. 1 seed heading into the playoffs, and Buford handled GAC in the teams’ first meeting to the tune of a seven-point road win. The team’s only loss this season came to Southwest DeKalb by 10 points, nothing to sneeze at for a small-classification school.
Another constant in the top-10 rankings over the past year, other than Greater Atlanta Christian, has been Laney, which finds itself ranked once again after a deep playoff run in ’09.
CLASS A
What else can you say about Wesleyan’s dominance? The only program mentioned in this story that can (right now) be legitimately called a dynasty, head coach Jan Azar (pictured) just continue to keep winning and reloading. With the best player in the history of the program, Anne Marie Armstrong, moving on to get significant playing time at Georgia as a freshman this season, the Lady Wolves are again the favorite to win the title, which would be their seventh title since 2002. This season, Erin Hall has led the team to victory after victory with her long-range shooting; she reached a career-high of 28 at the MLK Day showcase event against a ranked Osborne team. Wesleyan has been tested out-of-state and out-of-classification this season, as always; the team has three losses, with two coming to top non-Georgia teams and the other coming by just three points to Class 5A-ranked McEachern.
If a team were to step up and challenge Wesleyan this season, it will likely have to come from this grouping of teams that are still in the rankings after finishing ’09 in the top 10: Paideia, Calvary Day, Southwest Atlanta Christian, and Randolph-Clay. However, Paideia, always a top program in the state’s lowest classification, seems to be the only possible threat to Wesleyan in Region 8 and already lost by 26 points to the powerhouse Wolves. If things continue on this course, Wesleyan will be hoisting yet another championship trophy in Macon come mid-March.
Ewalt can be reached at aewalt@scoreatl.com.
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