There are scorers and shooters.
There are defensive stoppers and rebounders.
Then there is the glue.
Good teams can win with some of those ingredients, but championship squads need some glue.
April Burney enjoys playing multiple jobs for the Starkville Academy girls basketball team. It’s a position the senior tri-captain accepts whole-heartedly, whether it means setting back-bending screens or passing the basketball to a teammate who is in better position.
“She knows her role,” Starkville Academy coach Glenn Schmidt said. “She loves the team, she loves the school, she is playing to win. She is perfect for the blue-collar position because she will do anything to win.”
Burney started last season when the Lady Volunteers had only eight players. A year ago, she needed to do more, including score, and she did her best to fill that role.
This season, Burney has stepped aside and allowed sophomores Sallie Kate Richardson and Anna Lea Little to continue to emerge. Little had a game-high 25 points and Richardson added 21 Wednesday to lead Starkville Academy to a 72-28 victory against Magnolia Heights in the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Class AAA, Division II tournament at Heritage Academy.
The win secured a berth in the overall Class AAA tournament next week, and pushes Starkville Academy to a 2:15 p.m. showdown Friday against Hillcrest Christian. The winner of that game will play for the title at 2:15 p.m. Saturday.
To get there, the Lady Volunteers will rely on Burney to continue to do a little bit of everything. In the first quarter Wednesday, she showed her heads-up approach on two fundamentally sound plays. On the first, she used every inch of her 5-foot-4 frame to set a screen for one of her teammates. Burney grimaced as she held her feet set and bent at the waist to absorb the contact from the defender.
“We practice screening every practice,” Burney said. “If it helps to get the other person open who is going to make a shot, I am going to set a screen. If I am driving to create a play for another teammate, that is that I am going to do.”
On the second play, she penetrated one step past the foul line into the lane and realized she didn’t have a play. She stopped, remained in control, and passed the ball back to the left wing to Little, who drained a 3-pointer. The assist was one of three on a scoreless day for Burney.
“April Burney fits our team,” Schmidt said. “She does what she has to do, and if there is a hole she fills it up. She is a great kid.”
Burney feels her role is to be an “assist person” and to play defense. She does it with a bubbly hustle that allows her to bounce all over the floor.
Tiffany Huddleston had seven points and Julianne Jackson added five in the victory. Both of those players are similar to Burney in that they play a role. Huddleston comes off the bench to provide another ballhandler and scorer, while Jackson gives the Lady Volunteers an inside presence who can score and rebound.
Schmidt said Starkville Academy will need all of those pieces to play a team game. She admits the Lady Volunteers don’t try to be flashy and prefer to be solid across the board and do the little things, like play solid defense, handle the basketball with both hands, and box out defenders to control the rebounds. Schmidt said those fundamentals come from years of learning from coaches like Jerry Henderson and Ed Nixon, who coached her when she was a player.
Burney is a player out of Schmidt’s mold. She works hard whenever she is on the court, and she works just as hard on the sideline, applauding teammates and picking them up when they need a spark.
Burney, who was a shortstop on the basketball team this past season, said the Lady Volunteers started work on fundamentals immediately after the end of the 2010-11 season. She said the team still works every day on rebounding to make sure it masters the basics. All of that work has helped Starkville Academy move within grasp of a championship. Burney, Jackson, and classmate Anna Prestridge have tried their best to be some of the glue that keeps it all in place.
“We all have our own individual roles and it comes together like glue,” Burney said.
n In boys action, Kyle Loman had nine points and Austin Kinard had seven, but Starkville Academy saw its season end with a 63-27 loss to Washington School. The Volunteers trailed 32-19 at halftime and couldn’t recover from a third quarter that saw them fall behind 51-21.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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