Kenner team is attracting a lot of attention
Completely confident in her Kenner Angels, Caitlin Cleveland looked straight ahead and answered the question with ease.
This group of 15- and 16-year-old girls has won two Amateur Athletic Union national championships, in 2000 and 2001. They didn't become that good just from practicing whenever they had spare time between homework and home room.
There's something else to it.
"It was bred within us to annihilate everyone we played," Cleveland said.
Don't believe her?
When the Angels were eighth-graders, they couldn't find any suitable competition their age, so they played in high school camps.
The Angels didn't just win, they beat every team they faced. The high schoolers would lose by as much as 30 points to Kenner, Cleveland recalled.
"We were a very good team," Angel forward Adrienne Johnson said. "We just wanted better competition."
During the six years this core group of Angels has been together, they have placed in the final four of the national tournament five times. Their worst finish was eighth. That's out of 100 teams from across the country that qualify for the field.
They have six or seven players who likely will play NCAA Division I basketball, Angels coach Alan Frey said, and a few others could wind up playing at smaller colleges.
Cleveland, the team's point guard, has received questionnaires from Baylor, Tennessee, Florida and Connecticut. Colleges can't send letters to prospective student-athletes until Sept. 1 of the player's junior year of high school.
Adrienne Johnson, the Angels' leading scorer, has received mailings from Tulane, Mississippi State and Louisiana Tech.
But this confident group of Angels doesn't let what comes in the mail go to their heads. They don't really talk about it.
"They try to play it cool," Frey said.
At most gymnasiums where the Angels play, college recruiters chart their every move. Earlier this week, Tennessee coach Pat Summitt watched three Angels games.
Talk about pressure.
"I was definitely star-struck," Johnson said of playing in front of Summitt.
The Angels, founded in the late 1980s, have nine AAU national titles. Nearly 50 players who went through the Angels program played NCAA Division I basketball, including assistant coach Shondra Johnson, who led the team to five AAU titles, including the 1996 AAU Junior Olympic Games. She was the AAU Joel Ferrell Award winner for most outstanding player in her sport.
On Friday, Kenner won two games in the double-elimination tournament at the Alario Center. The championship game for girls basketball is Tuesday.
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