Lady Bucs basketball pushing for 3-peat

By KYLE PARMLEY

The Hoover High School girls basketball team has made it no secret what the goal is this season.

The Lady Bucs want to achieve something yet to be done in the program’s history: win a third consecutive Class 7A state championship.

They entered the year as one of the favorites to claim the title and have done nothing to dissuade that opinion thus far.

Through its first 25 games, Hoover held a 24-1 record, its only loss a one-point defeat to Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa. Of those 24 victories, half of them had come against out-of-state competition. It’s not as if the Lady Bucs have taken it easy through the early portions of the schedule.

“The team’s progress is probably a lot better than we expected, considering the people that we lost [after last season],” Hoover head coach Krystle Johnson said.

Hillcrest is a solid team this season, but the 31-30 loss came on Hoover’s third game in three days and on a day when the Lady Bucs shot by far their lowest percentage in any game. But it served as a wake-up call to the team as well, which will yield benefits in the long run.

“I hate that we had to have that little hiccup, but having it in December is better than having it in February,” Johnson said.

The Lady Bucs are led this season by Reniya Kelly, who no longer has her longtime running mate Aniya Hubbard. Hubbard graduated last year and is now playing at Florida Atlantic University. That has led to more attention being put on Kelly by opposing teams.

“I can see more teams have started to sag off of me, knowing I like to drive,” Kelly said.

Johnson has implored her star point guard, a University of North Carolina commit, to continue looking for her own shot. Kelly is the program’s all-time leading scorer and the first to eclipse 2,000 career points. She has contributed to the varsity team since she was in eighth grade.

“Knowing how hard she works — she’s always in the gym, always trying to study the game, watches basketball, that’s a huge feat,” Johnson said. “We’ve had a lot of great players in this program.”

Layla Etchison and Alanah Pooler have each also surpassed the 1,000-point mark in their high school careers as well. Both have hopes of playing in college, while fellow senior Kristen McMillan is committed to play at the University of Central Arkansas.

Kelly said the Lady Bucs have yet to play their best game, which should be scary to future postseason opponents given the team’s record to this point. She wants to see her team get better at “doing the small things.”

Pooler also came up with a list of things the Lady Bucs are looking to improve daily, such as talking on defense, playing as a team, developing trust and team chemistry, and knowing roles and assignments.

Coach and players alike see the potential that exists. If Hoover reaches it at some point in February, that elusive three-peat may finally be within reach.

“If we could ever just get everybody to play at a high level when they step on the court, we would be unbeatable,” Johnson said.