UAH Chargers - Basketball

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Basketball

Former Gardner Webb assistant joins Lady Charger coaching staff

Written by Antoine Bell
Sunday, 09 May 2010
Carter Taking another step in a new direction with the UAH Lady Charger basketball program, head coach Roy Heintz has announced the hiring of Deondra Carter as his new assistant basketball coach. Carter comes to Huntsville from NCAA Division I Gardner Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, where for the past three years she has served as an assistant coach on Rick Reeves’ Lady Bulldog coaching staff. At Gardner Webb University, she helped turn the Lady Bulldogs into a Big South Conference power and into the national rankings. This year’s Lady Bulldog team set a school record with 28 wins, a 28-5 record, winning the Big South regular season championship – the first regular season title in its 35-year history. They also set a school record with a 16-game winning streak, and spent 15 weeks receiving votes in the ESPN/USA Today Top 25 Coaches poll. She coached Margaret Roundtree who became Gardner Webb’s all-time Division I leading scorer while being named the Big South Conference “Player of the Year” and assisted head coach Rick Reeves who was named “Coach of the Year.” As a player, Carter was named as one of the Top 30 players in Southern Mississippi history, was the team captain in 2004-2005, and in 2003-2004 was named the African American Student-Athlete of the Year at Southern Miss, where she graduated in just three-and-a-half years. She also was named to the Conference USA All-Freshman First Team in her rookie season. “I am extremely excited to have Deondra Carter join our coaching staff at UAH, and think that she will be an incredible asset to me and our program. She loves the game of basketball, and has a great mind for the game. She is certainly a student of the game, and has also been a strong teacher of the game to the athletes she worked with on the floor,” said Heintz. “She is a strong recruiter throughout the southeast, and her desire to continue to grow and mature as an assistant coach, with a desire to become a head coach down the road, made her an attractive assistant coach in my eyes.” “She was a great student at Southern Miss, and she shares my desire to work at a strong academic institution like UAH. She is a wonderful person that also has had a tremendous influence on the student-athletes she has worked with at Gardner Webb, and I believe she will do the same in our Lady Charger program. The more time I spent with her, and the more time we talked, we realized that we had a common vision, and with both of us having gained good experience in turning around programs – I felt like we would have the synergistic ability to take this program in a new direction.” Carter, who has already moved to Huntsville, starts right away in assisting Heintz with his summer basketball camps and skill-specific clinics for high school and junior high players, as well as with summer recruiting.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 09 May 2010 )

UAH Lady Chargers Signing List Brightens Future Outlook

Written by Special to UAHChargers.com
Monday, 03 May 2010
Left - Jordan Smith, Right - Shannon Steinert After a 4-20 campaign in Coach Roy Heintz first season at the helm of the UAH Lady Chargers, Heintz worked hard to bring in a recruiting class that would bring talent and depth. With seven freshmen signees, and two more players still possibly coming to Huntsville to play next season, Heintz feels like he has accomplished his recruiting mission. Three high school standouts signed during the early signing period – Jordan Smith and Shannon Steinert, two starters from 6A state champion Hoover High School, and 6’3” guard Tiffamy Myrick out of 5A Hayden High School. Four top scholastic players have signed in the past two weeks with UAH, including 2A state champion Clements’ standout Jordan Beggs. Point guard Janie Graves who has been the floor general for Shelbyville (Tenn.) High School, will take over the reigns of the Lady Charger attack, while guards Jasmine Hammon from Muscle Shoals High School and Erin Reynolds from Russellville High School will bring more firepower to the lineup. Hoover Duo Fulfills Dreams During Incredible Year Jordan Smith and Shannon Steinert have been best friends since they were toddlers, competing together in youth basketball and t-ball. That friendship grew strong, as well as their love for basketball, and their dream to one day lead the Hoover High School girls basketball team to a state championship and earn college basketball scholarships. After playing four years of Varsity basketball, those big dreams became reality during the 2009-10 season for Smith and Steinert, as the Hoover Lady Bucs finished the season as the Alabama 6A state champions, finishing with a 32-1 record and the #15-ranking in USA Today’s Girls Basketball polls, while losing their only contest to USA Today’s #2 ranked team in a 50-44 December decision. Fans know the Smith name well, as Jordan Smith becomes the fourth Smith family member to play basketball for UAH, after two brothers Joe and Jason earned All-American status for the Chargers, and brother Jaime played a key role in leading the Chargers to the NCAA tournament during his redshirt freshman year this season. A highly skilled guard, Jordan Smith will bring versatility to the Lady Charger backcourt. Smith also was a team captain this season, earned 6A Area 10 All-Tournament team honors in her junior season, and also was named the Hoover Rotary Club’s Athlete of the Month for March, 2009, and was honored as the 2009 Bob Finley Character Award winner. “Jordan is incredibly sound from a fundamental standpoint,” said Heintz. “Obviously having older brothers to learn from and help her game develop was important, but she loves the game and plays with great effort. She started on the wing and can mix good 3-pt shooting with a great penetration game too. She can really score off the bounce with a great runner, or going all the way to the glass to draw fouls. She is a good defender that was very good in Hoover’s pressing game, and was great on the boards while handing out twice as many assists as turnovers (82 to 41).” Her best friend, Steinert grabbed Heintz’s eye last July during AAU summer league play, with a style of play that Heintz loved immediately, and that he wanted to see with his Lady Charger team. “Shannon is the kind of player that took three or four charges a game in July AAU games, while sprinting all over the court creating havoc on defense and coming up with steals,” said the Lady Chargers head coach. “The game that sealed the deal last summer was one in which her team’s opponent called timeout to set up a potential game-winning shot in the closing seconds. The game ended with Shannon diving to tip a pass, jumping up to sprint toward the loose ball, and then diving on the ball to create a jump-ball as the final horn sounded. I left the game knowing I wanted a tireless worker like that in our program.” Steinert started on the opposite wing from Smith in the Lady Buc backcourt and also brings a solid range of statistical experience, including 65 steals, 57 rebounds, and 54 assists. A good 3-pt shooter, Steinert, like Smith, is fearless in scoring off penetration too. Steinert’s strong performance in the 6A state championship game played a key much-talked-about role in leading Coach Donnie Quinn’s squad to the title. During her 4-year Varsity career, Steinert was a team captain for both her junior and senior seasons, and was honored as the 2008 Bob Finley Character Award winner. “Jordan and Shannon come from a great high school program at Hoover, and have been taught by a great coaching staff and a great head coach in Donnie Quinn,” said Heintz. “Their friendship helped them be attuned to each other in Hoover’s pressing game, almost knowing how the other was going to set up an opponent, and allowing the other to create a turnover. That will help our pressing game at UAH too, and their love of the game and work ethic is contagious. They know what it takes to be champions, and I know they will bring that to our program.” Big Guard Brings Big Ideas Myrick When Coach Heintz heard about, and then saw, Tiffany Myrick play this season, it conjured up memories from his coaching past. As an assistant coach at Florida State University, he got to watch and coach a big guard by the name of Brooke Wyckoff, who played for the U.S. national team, and just retired after an eight-year WNBA career that included eight seasons of professional ball overseas. Wyckoff’s size and skill at the guard spot created match-up problems for opponents, and Heintz feels Myrick will do the same for his Lady Charger squad. Myrick helped lead this year’s Hayden High School Lady Wildcat basketball team to a school record 26-3 season. She earned All-County honors in her freshman, junior, and seniors years, as well as being named the All-Area MVP for her junior season. She demonstrated a complete all-around game this year, averaging 7.3 points, 7.7 rebounds, 3.8 blocked shots, 2.5 assists, and 2.5 steals per game. Hayden girls basketball coach, John Simmons, used Myrick in a guard spot to create mismatches this season, and Lady Charger head coach Roy Heintz feels Simmons great coaching, teaching, and allowing Myrick to play to her strengths and ability to play on the perimeter, uniquely prepared her for the next level, especially given her athleticism. “Tiffany is a true guard with a really athletic 6’3” frame,” said Heintz. “She earned a black belt in martial arts when she was younger, and has the school record in the triple jump and shot put while competing in track and field. She broke a toe during the basketball season, and played through it, so she wasn’t able to full compete during track, so she just threw the shot put this year – and is at the state meet trying to win a state championship in that event. She is almost dunking a basketball and has 3pt. jump shot range out to about twenty-two feet.” “I am so excited to have Tiffany in our program, and she is going to create match-up nightmares for our opponents. She is so athletic, and so skilled, she is going to really do some special things in our program. She loves the game and works so hard at it. She is a gym rat that loves to go into the gym and work on her game, and her high school coach John Simmons said that if he let her put a bed in the gym, she would have never gone home.” Floor General To Run The Show Graves (Seated second from the right) After an illustrious career in one of the country’s most legendary high school girls basketball programs at Shelbyville (TN) High School, Janie Graves decided she wanted to join Coach Roy Heintz in turning around UAH Lady Charger basketball. Building a program from the ground up is Graves’ desire, and leading from her point guard spot will be pivotal. “Janie Graves played for Lynn Burkey, one of the best high school coaches in the country, and she has been at the core of the Lady Eaglettes’ success throughout her career,” said Roy Heintz. “Every great program has a point guard that leads on and off the floor, that is willing to take the reins of a program – and it was evident to me, as soon as I met Janie, that she was the player that I needed to play that role in our program, if we were going to turn this program back into a winner and compete for championships.” As a freshman, Graves hit game-winning shots against Lincoln County and then two weeks later against Knoxville Webb who was led by future Tennessee Lady Vol Glory Johnson, earning “Freshman of the Year” honors for her rookie campaign at Shelbyville. She started at point guard during her sophomore season, leading Shelbyville to the state tournament. She followed that up with the team’s “100% Hustle Award” for her junior year, as she led the team in assists. This season she was named to the District 8AAA All-District team and was the District Most valuable Player, and then earned Region 4AAA All-Tournament honors. During the regular, she was also named to the All-tournament team in both the Mountain View Inn Thanksgiving tournament and the Above The Rim Christmas Invitational tournament. She was named the “Team MVP” award, leading the Lady Eaglettes in scoring (14.6), assists (2.4), and charges taken, and was second in rebounding (4.4). She also shot 40.4% from the floor, while adding 2.6 steals per game. Heintz added, “I am so glad that Janie bought into our vision for this program. Her fiery competitiveness and strong work ethic will positively influence this program, and I believe she is the kind of leader that you want your point guard to be. Coach Burkey called her the best floor general he has ever had, which is saying an awful lot. She wants to be a coach, and quite literally has played like one on the floor throughout her high school career. She is a student of the game and loves to watch game film and meet with her coaches to prepare for upcoming games and opponents. I cannot wait to coach her.” Beggs To Follow Championship Success With Hopes Of College Success Beggs (Center) When Jordan Beggs started playing high school basketball as an eight-grader, her Clements High School girls basketball program was a struggling one without a winning tradition. Her high school career concluded with the Lady Colts winning the first state championship in the school’s girls basketball history. Weeks later, Beggs became the first female athlete to sign a college athletic scholarship since 1984. The six-foot guard used her versatile broad range of skills and solid leadership to help lead the Lady Colts to their championship success. Beggs shot 42% from the floor, 36% from beyond the 3pt. arc, and 78% from the free throw line, while pulling down 4.2 rebounds, and handing out 1.7 assists per game. She also had 70 blocked shots and 29 steals. For her career she had 1,483 points, 641 rebounds, 204 assists, 179 blocked shots, and 163 steals. “Jordan Beggs is such a versatile player and will continue to perform that way at the intercollegiate level,” said Roy Heintz. “Jordan showed me so much this year, by being such a great leader, and she did everything her team needed game in and game out. She is so talented, and with her height and skills, will also create match-up problems for our opponents. I really believe that she will use her championship experience, and the knowledge of what it takes to turn a program around, to help us do that at UAH.” Hammon brings Scoring Threat To Lady Charger Backcourt With a desire to play a high-tempo game that attacks opponents on both ends of the floor, Roy Heintz believes he landed a gem that will help the Lady Chargers immediately, when Jasmine Hammon signed with UAH following a tremendous career at Muscle Shoals High School. Hammon became the first Muscle Shoals’ girls basketball player to sign a Division I or II scholarship since 1997. Muscle Shoals’ coach Brenda Mayes watched Hammon since she played rec league basketball and believes Hammon can become a “dominant 2-guard” at UAH, after drawing interest from the University of South Alabama, Tennessee State University, and North Alabama. Hammon, a 5’9” guard, was a first team All-Area Class 4A-6A player this season after averaging 20.9 points per game, while pulling down 8.2 rebounds and snatching 3.4 steals per game. “I am so excited that Jasmine Hammon chose UAH,” said Roy Heintz. “She fits our need for a real quality scoring guard that can drive to the basket and finish, and then knock down 3pt. shots from deep beyond the arc. She handles the ball really well and is a tenacious defender that will help us in our pressing game and half court defense.” “She just loves to play the game, and loves to get into the gym to work on her game. She played for an outstanding coach at Muscle Shoals, in Brenda Mayes, and was very coachable and teachable there. I fell in love with the way she played while watching her last summer playing for Bob Harris and the North Alabama Twisters, and we really ratcheted up our recruiting of her when she didn’t sign with any Division I schools during the early signing period. She wanted to major in Nursing, and our Nursing program is one of the best around, so that certainly helped us get her. She wanted a place that she could major in Nursing while playing for a program that she could help turn around, and I’m thrilled to have her join the Lady Charger family.” Russellville’s Reynolds Brings Athleticism And Success To UAH After leading her Golden Tiger team to a 22-7 record, losing in the Northwest regional championship game on a banked-in 3pt. shot at the buzzer, forward Erin Reynolds from Russellville High School signed with the Lady Chargers. The 5’9” Reynolds averaged 17 points and nine rebounds a game during her senior season that was capped off by being named to the 12-player Alabama team in the Alabama-Mississippi All-Star game. With the desire to pursue a degree in Chemistry and ultimately attend Medical school, Reynolds was also attracted to UAH’s academic excellence. “I am so excited to have Erin Reynolds join the Lady Charger basketball family,” said Roy Heintz. “She is an incredible athlete, with about a 30-inch vertical jump and great speed. She is that athleticism in becoming a phenomenal rebounder, and that speed and quickness will really help us on the defensive end. She will make an immediate impact for us in defense and rebounding.” According to Heintz, Reynolds was well-coached, playing for Coach James Bostick at Russellville, and then teaming-up with her good friend and future Lady Charger teammate Jasmine Hammon on Bob Harris’ North Alabama Twisters teams. “Erin is so fundamentally sound, from playing for a great high school coach at Russellville, in James Bostwick, and then got great experience playing alongside Jasmine Hammon for Bob Harris in AAU summer ball. I look forward to working with her on her ability to face up more on the offensive end – and then we’re just going to turn her loose on the boards and on the defensive end,” said Heintz. “With our desire to play a high-speed up-tempo game – Erin is the perfect signee for us, and she is going to have a wonderful athletic and academic career here at UAH. She will truly epitomize what we want a student-athlete in our program to look like.”
Last Updated ( Sunday, 09 May 2010 )

Lee provides silver lining in dark season for Lady Chargers

Written by Antoine Bell
Tuesday, 02 March 2010
In a season that saw the Lady Chargers struggle to a 4-20 finish, junior guard Candace Lee provided a ray of sunshine by being voted first team All-Gulf South Conference in the East Division. Lee led the Lady Chargers in scoring this season with 10.7 points per game. She also led the team and was fourth in the GSC in assists averaging 3.96 per game. Lee also led the GSC in three-point fieldgoal percentage (.456).
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 March 2010 )

Season comes to a quiet end for the Lady Chargers with final loss

Written by Antoine Bell
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Livingston - It hasn't been a lot of fun for Coach Roy Heintz in his first season at UAH. His Lady Chargers have had a rough time to say the least and it mercifully came to an end with a 87-65 loss to West Alabama on Saturday. With the loss, the Lady Chargers ended the season at 4-20 and 1-9 in the Gulf South Conference. Guard Marissa Carter matched her season high with 22 points for UAH. Monica Boatwright added 10 points, while senior Amber Whitt contributed nine points and 10 rebounds. Latashia Greer had 26 points and 10 rebounds to lead West Alabama. Jenni Thomley dropped in 14 points, while Keiara Middleton tallied 12 points and Nicole Dames had 11. For the game, West Alabama shot a torrid 54.7% (35-for-64) from the field, while UAH hit only 34.6% (18-of-52). As has been the story in many of the losses this season, the Lady Chargers were also plagued by turnovers, committing 21. The Lady Chargers were in the fight for much of the first half and led 27-26 with 6:26 left. However, West Alabama went on a 17-3 run down the stretch and raced into the lockerroom with a 43-30 halftime lead. That blitz seemed to be the knockout punch as the Lady Chargers never recovered. UWA stretched their lead out in the second half, leading by as much as 23 points.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 28 February 2010 )

Lady Chargers fall with a thud at UNA

Written by Antoine Bell
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Florence - The Lady Chargers suffered a first round knockout at the hands of North Alabama. The Lady Lions rolled out to a huge lead and went on to hand UAH an embarrassing 101-47 on Thursday night. The Lady Chargers fell to 4-19 and 1-8 with the loss, while UNA improved to 16-13 and 8-2. Monica Boatwright had 20 points to lead UAH. She was one of the bright spots for the Lady Chargers who shot 28% for the game. Boatwright was 5-for-9 with a 3-pointer and 9-for-10 from the freethrow line. Andrea Bennett and scored in double-figures, netting 11 points and grabbing five rebounds. Brianna Abrams led four players in double-digits with 16 points. Sanqueeta Meardith and Niala Harris each dropped in 15, while Lacy Lewis contributed 10. UNA blew the game open in the first half, shooting 70% (24-of-34) from the field en route to a 56-20 lead. The Lady Chargers were the direct opposite, struggling mightily in the first 20 minutes hitting only 4-of-19 shots (21%). Things didn't get any better in the second half as UNA ran away and hid.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 February 2010 )