Gilbert High Depending On Seniors To Lead The Culture Change
For the Gilbert High Tigers, a ton has changed since the last time they took the court as a team. After finishing the 2018-2019 season as the 5A State Runner-up, the team lost seven seniors, including the top-three players who…
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Continue ReadingFor the Gilbert High Tigers, a ton has changed since the last time they took the court as a team. After finishing the 2018-2019 season as the 5A State Runner-up, the team lost seven seniors, including the top-three players who led the team in nearly every aspect of the game. In addition to having nearly half the team graduate, their former coach Kyle Pederson also left the program in search of exploring another career path in life.
Dealing with a complete change to the program can sometimes be tough for players, especially for seniors who have grown accustomed to the way a program is run. However, new head coach Dennis Carter says the seniors are not just learning to cope with the change, they’re welcoming and embracing it with open arms.
According to Carter, the senior trio knows they’ll have some big shoes to fill in terms of leadership and performance on the court, but they’re ready for it. Carter says they’re eager to get out there with this new group and lead the change in culture. Carter says the girls have already expressed their desire to make it so that everyone on the team is more involved in the overall success, rather than just relying on the same couple players for everything.
Let’s take a look at the seniors leading the change on the court for the Tigers.
Alayna Benavides-Johnson
Of all the players on the team, Alayna, also known as AJ, may be the most familiar with what it’s like to make a huge sacrifice for what you want the most. She’s sacrificed a lot, leaving her mother back in Indiana to move to Arizona with her dad for more basketball opportunities. While she only averaged 4.3 PPG last year, she was one of the few players on this year’s team who saw the court in every game last season. Statistically, her strongest area of play was her free throw shooting, sinking 11 of 18 shots for 61%, followed by her field goal shooting, hitting 23 of 45 for 51%.
AJ worked hard in the off-season to make sure when she had her opportunity to shine this season, she’d be ready. Every morning during summer, she and teammate Kori Jackson would get up at 5 a.m. and get a work out in. In addition to her morning workout, AJ and her dad, who was her basketball coach for a large portion of her younger life, would work towards sharpening and improving her skills. As an aspiring athletic trainer, AJ is also working to get ahead in the classroom. She spends a lot of time studying, as she’s enrolled in dual enrollment classes in hopes of getting her pre-requisite classes out of the way.
Leah Millman
Leah is the only other player returning this year who also saw playing time in all 31 games last season. She had an average of 3.6 points per game and 2.5 rebounds per game. She said in the off-season, her main focus was to make sure she worked on improving her endurance. Millman’s goal is to be able to play an entire game and still have energy to keep going. Millman said she knows she’s fast, but she wants to shock people with her ability to keep the pace the entire game.
Millman not only has to manage basketball in her spare time. She’s also the student body president at Gilbert High and is enrolled in advanced classes. She’s learned she has to be diligent with her time management skills to ensure she is able to maximize her talents, and she hopes this can help set an example on the court for many of the younger players on the team.
Kori Jackson
Kori Jackson saw playing time in 18 of 31 games last season, but her stats don’t truly show what she’s capable of. A talented player, Coach Carter says Jackson definitely possesses the talent and drive needed to play at the next level. She also put in work during the summer with teammate Alayna “AJ” Benavides-Johnson as a way to improve her game. While she has the least playing time of all three of the girls, Carter says they’re still going to be depending on her for her leadership, as she’s one of the very few players who were around in the past.