Moore's Support Steps Up

Maya Moore had a superstar performance for Collins Hill, but her teammates, primarily Taylor Dalrymple, also rose to the occasion during the Nike Tournament of Champions final.

PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON

CHANDLER, Ariz. – An unlikely hero emerged this week for Collins Hill on its way to winning the 2006 Nike Tournament of Champions just a year after losing to eventual National Champions, Christ the King. Collins Hill took on No. 1 Long Beach Polytechnic High School in the tournament’s elite Black Division championship game and were victorious 75-61 in front of a nearly full house at Hamilton High School. The win inches Collins Hill closer to the national championship they narrowly missed last year if they can take care of business in their league and survive the National High School Federation tournament in Seattle, Wash., next week where they will take on Winterhaven High School, which is ranked nationally, and St. Elizabeth High school, which has one of the country’s best guards in Khadijah Rushdan.

Collins Hill star and Connecticut signee Maya Moore was the tournament MVP and that was an indisputable fact. Her play this week was the stuff legends are made of and her legacy against elite competition gets better and better with each new challenge. She scored what was then a career-high 40 points against Christ the King in the 2005 TOC championship game before fouling out on an incorrect call for striking the ball with her fist. This game was vindication to some degree although Moore is not a kid that needs anything specific to motivate her other than winning.

Moore: Best Ever?

Over the summer playing for her D-1 talent loaded Georgia Metros squad, Moore heard from all those in the stands that something must be wrong because she wasn’t scoring enough when in fact she was focusing on defense and getting her other talented teammates involved, something she knows she’ll need to do to succeed at UConn and professionally. Then after getting sick of hearing it, and even thinking about it, we asked her at Nike Nationals if there was in fact something wrong. She didn’t need to answer but she did in more ways than one. First was the audible response which was along the lines of her focus on defense and creating for teammates.

Then there was her response on the court the following day in the semifinals of the toughest summer tournament anywhere against one of the best club teams in the country, The Family from Indiana. She blew up with 42 points, 11 rebounds, six blocks, five assists and two steals. We get it Maya, you are the best high school player ever. Yes – EVER!

Her 31-point, eight-rebound performance against Poly Thursday afternoon was as impressive. Yet Poly was such a daunting opponent, and the best defensive team in the country, and it required more than just Moore’s Superwoman act. It is possible that Collins Hill may have been able to squeak out a win on her shoulders alone as they had in their quarterfinal and semifinal games, but we’re talking about a very iffy outcome.

The difference today was that the rest of her teammates stepped up and changed my mind from the three days prior. If you had asked me before today who the best ‘"team" in the country was I would have answered either Notre Dame Academy or Poly, despite Collins Hill beating Notre Dame and Poly struggling early in the tournament. Collins Hill responded in the biggest game of the year as a team. Nikki Urbizo came up with six big assists, Jazmin Walker knocked down six key free throws, Jordan Jones played through a painful kidney ailment, made some key defensive plays and knocked down a big three-pointer during Collins Hill's third-quarter run. But the one player who stepped up more than any other was junior post Taylor Dalrymple.

Jazmin Walker of Collins Hill

With Moore playing only 7 1/2 minutes in the first half with two fouls, Collins Hill needed not only to pick up the scoring and toughness lost with Moore on the bench, plus they needed a leader on the floor. Dalrymple was up to the challenge and, according to her coach, Tracy Tipton, she played her best game ever in a Collins Hill uniform. Having seen her play a half dozen times over the summer I’ll go out there and say it’s the best game I’ve ever seen her play.

Dalrymple played physical against the strong and aggressive front line of Poly which includes Jasmine Dixon and Taja Edwards, two players who were steamrolling opposing front courts for the past two days. Dalrymple also finished the game with five assists, incredible passes that not many other posts in America could make.

“Most people know me for my passing,” Dalrymple said, glowing with an ear-to-ear smile after the game. She just continued to make things happen play after play. She took three charges in the game, although she was credited for only two of them, and she filled a void that Tipton had never asked her to fill and that her team desperately needed – she played point guard.

With Dalrymple doing damage both offensively and defensively in the interior with her size and strength, Poly inserted their big bruising junior post, Nicolette Brown. Poly had a quickness advantage at every other position on the floor, so Tipton called on Dalrymple to help release some of the pressure. “We tried to get Maya (Moore) to set a screen to get Taylor (Dalrymple) open and then get the ball to a streaking Maya after the inbound pass,” Tipton said. With Poly overplaying Moore, much like they did with Elena DelleDonne the day before, it was difficult to get her the ball and, when Moore left with foul trouble, there was no superstar feed the ball.

Collins Hill made the adjustment to use their only speed and quickness advantage with Dalrymple to relieve the pressure in a different way, by bringing the ball up as the point guard. She did so successfully and allowed Collins Hill to take a one point lead into half time. Coach Tipton, so impressed with the success her new point forward was having even went four low and allowed Dalrymple, who was selected to the all-tournament team, to go one-on-one from the top of the perimeter a few times.

Taja Edwards of Poly

Dalrymple finished with 13 points, hit all six of her free throw attempts, hit another three as she did in the Notre Dame game and all of her plays were at key moments in the game. In the first half she helped maintain her team’s lead and she and Moore fueled perhaps the most dominant quarter of basketball in the third quarter that Poly will ever see when Collins Hill went on a quarter long 29-8 run in the third to open up a lead that Poly could not recover from.

Poly did make the run that all great teams make and cut the lead to nine in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter but ultimately it was too big of a lead for a team with the country’s best player and an emerging junior playing the game of her life.

For Poly the fourth quarter was led by Jasmine Dixon and the expected pressure defense that is the Jackrabbits’ trademark. Dixon scored 13 of her 22 points in the final period and she, along with ,Edwards, earned all tournament honors. Poly didn’t quit even when they got down 25 points. They surged and cut the lead to 15 with 3:20 to play and a Candice Nichols jumper cut the lead to 70-61 with 1:20 to play. Collins Hill shot 18-20 from the free throw line which made a miracle comeback impossible.

The game proved that Collins Hill not only has the best player in the country, but that they are indeed also the best team in the country. Last year’s TOC was about the superstars with DelleDonne, Moore, Tina Charles, Jacki Gemelos and Michelle Harrison. This year great team’s were on display - not only Collins Hill and Poly but Notre Dame Academy had me convinced until today that they were the best team regardless of their loss. Archbishop Mitty also plays as a complete unit around their star player Danielle Robinson. At the conclusion of the TOC, this writer believes the top three teams in order are Collins Hill, Long Beach Poly and Notre Dame Academy and the great thing about each of those teams is they have star power and play the game the right way, as a team, with heart, passion and with the team’s goals above everything else.

The First Academy and Notre Dame Academy hold a midcourt,
spiritual meeting after their Thursday game

---

Click Here for More 2006 TOC Coverage

---

Discuss This on Our Message Board:

Click Here

---