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At first glance, Prep Charter doesn’t resemble a basketball team, meaning their tiny, with the tallest player standing 5 feet, 9 inches. The majority of the team struggles to clear 5 feet, 3 inches.
Add varsity inexperience, along with new offensive and defensive schemes, and these Lady Huskies are going through an extreme makeover. So far, the new look is producing winning results with a 10-3 overall record and 6-2 mark in Public League play. Their only losses have come against Conwell-Egan in a non-league game, Freire Charter and Engineering & Science.
They are compensating for lack of size and experience with a lot of points – a lot of points – with a dash of suffocating defensive strategies.
Monday, the Lady Huskies jumped out to a 27-18 lead over Bodine after one quarter and a 36-33 edge at halftime. In the second half, the team blew away the competition, outscoring Bodine, 47-18, on the way to a convincing 81-51 victory. In a 32-minute game, that’s more than 2.5 points a minute.
What’s the secret to their success? Turning up the pressure cooker.
"When you play full-court pressure defense for 32 minutes, it tends to get a little sloppy. The other team gets real sloppy, turning the ball over and it gets easy points for us," first-year coach Paul Rieser, who spent last season as Prep Charter’s boys’ basketball junior varsity coach, said.
THE SYSTEM WORKED equally well in Prep Charter’s Jan. 18 contest against Imhotep Charter, which it won, 61-22. The Lady Huskies held their opposition to nine points through the first three quarters, outscoring them, 50-9. Sophomore guard Erin Hunley recorded a triple-double with 10 points, 11 assists and 12 steals, while junior guard Emerald Robinson led all scorers with 22 points.
Both came up big in Monday’s win with Robinson tallying 26 points and Hunley contributing 16 points and 12 steals. Heading into the week, Robinson ranked fifth among Public League scorers, averaging 17.4 points per contest. Little sister Raven Jones, a freshman guard, added 15 points against Bodine.
Rieser said the sisters are playing well together.
"Raven and Emerald know where each other are on the floor at all times," he said. "Like any other siblings, they get on each others nerves."
Their teammates don’t mind, as the sisters are averaging a combined 30-plus points per game. The latter puts the Lady Huskies in contention for the Public League playoffs, under way next month. Prep Charter also could qualify for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association AA state tournament by virtue of winning its opening-round playoff game. The team qualified last season, but was eliminated in the first round.
Engineering & Science is one team Rieser would love to play again next month. The Lady Huskies lost their Jan. 14 meeting to the team and E&S; eliminated Prep Charter in last year’s Public League playoffs.
"I am excited about possibly playing E&S; again because I want to try and do some things to contain what they do," Rieser said.
The Lady Huskies are putting in the time to take that next step, including Saturday morning practices. During the summer, Rieser plans to enter his team in several leagues and sign them up for a camp.
It will certainly help the young core of players better grasp Rieser’s complex system of three to four full-court pressure defenses, five to six different inbound plays and the use of basketball terms that would send some Public League squads into mass confusion. With a young team, Rieser is doing a lot of teaching.
"We are using a whole lot of verbiage that kids had never heard before," he said. "I have to stop and explain things over and over again."
The coach also has a long-term plan: make Prep Charter girls’ basketball a top program in the city in terms of winning, as well as in college scouts’ eyes.
"Our big thing is Philadelphia Public League girls’ basketball is under-recruited on a lot of different levels," said Rieser, a former Division II junior college basketball coach. "We want to turn it into a place where college coaches come and get players.
"If we travel, the girls will be seen by college coaches. When we do that, kids will get a chance to go to college on grant money or a scholarship."
