Towering talents at Montini, Lake Park

Lake Park's Samantha Arnold and Montini's Michala Johnson stand out in a crowd.

You don't have to look hard to spot them in the hallways at school. Arnold and Johnson are head and shoulders above their classmates at 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-3, respectively.

They may have stopped growing vertically, but their stature continues to rise on the basketball court as their talent sprouts like weeds. They're well on their way to becoming two of the best girls basketball players ever to come out of a DuPage County school.

While Arnold and Johnson are nearly the same height, their games are very different. Arnold is most at home on the perimeter, whereas Johnson likes to operate around the basket.

Both are successful.

Arnold leads the county in scoring. The junior forward pushed her average to 22.6 points, over 3 more than a year ago, after dropping a career-high 33 on Addison Trail on Tuesday. She's being asked to produce even more now that junior forward Devin Johnston, Lake Park's second-leading scorer, has been sidelined for the season with an ACL injury.

"She's got a lot of demands on her, that's for sure," Lancers coach Lisa Smith said of Arnold. "We don't have the depth that a lot of teams have."

Skilled shooters

Growing up, Arnold learned how to shoot from brother Kyle, 18.

"My brother was always a really good shooter, so ever since I was little I was always shooting with him trying to shoot like him," Arnold said. "People would always say I have more of a guy shot."

Arnold always had to tell her coaches that she was an outside shooter when they tried to stick her underneath the basket because of her height. She remains a shooter to this day.

"She has that beautiful hand catch and quick release," Smith said. "She's got such soft hands and a nice touch off her shot. Watching her fingers, the ball rolls right off."

On the season Arnold's made 32 3-pointers while shooting 45 percent from the field and a county-best 83 percent from the free-throw line.

Arnold's extended shooting range is uncommon for a player her size.

"It's kind of rare," Smith said. "Who's the last player you can think of, Candace Parker? She could shoot the 3, drive the basket, post up. You don't see a lot of those kids."

Johnson is second to Arnold in scoring in DuPage. The sophomore center is averaging 19.0 points on a mere 11.4 field-goal attempts a game thanks largely to being on a team with many scoring options.

"It's unbelievable," Montini coach Jason Nichols said. "If you think about the other stars in the Chicagoland area, those kids are getting 17 to 20 shots a game. If Michala did, with her efficiency, she would be at 25 a game."

Johnson is shooting 66 percent from the field. She runs the floor like a guard and attacks the basket like a cobra. The slender scorer credited Mike Seberger, the dad of former Broncos all-area forward Sarah Seberger and current sophomore guard Alison Seberger, for her advanced post play.

"He basically taught me all my moves," said Johnson, who plays for Seberger on the AAU Illinois Lady Lightning. "That's where I got them."

Currently, the games of Arnold and Johnson are like two tall ships passing in the night somewhere near the free-throw line. Arnold is working on improving her inside game, while Johnson is expanding her shooting to the outside.

"I think I'm more aggressive," said Arnold, who already has 1,332 points in her high school career, on her improvement this year. "I'm obviously stronger than last year and the girls are really looking to give me the ball inside. I've worked more on my inside game. I'm not just a shooter. If I'm defended outside, I can go inside now."

"The thing I would tell a coach if you haven't played against her is, 'Good luck, she's tough to defend,' " Smith said. "You don't know what to expect from her. She'll either curl off a screen and shoot off the pass or she'll ball fake and drive to the basket and stop quick and do that short little jumper that she loves to shoot. She'll post up. She'll cut through the lane. She's difficult to guard. You don't know what she's going to do."

Gaining more attention

As the new kid on the block last season, Johnson often hit opponents before they knew what hit them. This year's been different. She's seeing more defensive attention in the form of double- and triple-teams.

"It's funny because I was just telling my mom that last year as a freshman I was getting more points and more rebounds because people really didn't know who I was," Johnson said. "Like they heard of me, but they didn't really know exactly who I was. But now this year since I'm a sophomore everybody knows me and knows how to play me and how to box me out and do all this stuff. They're reading their notes."

It's not like teams are stopping Johnson. She already has 1,066 career points. However, she's adjusting to the defensive bottlenecks in the paint by moving away from them more. She recently drilled outside shots in back-to-back games.

"Her jump shot is better and she's starting to take it, which is going to make her a dual threat," Nichols said. "Now as she develops more ball skills on the wing, even though she can attack from the high post to the basket, I think she can get a lot better. Now she's good, but she can be scary great."

Arnold and Johnson both see themselves as either small or power forwards in college.

Arnold committed to Michigan last week. One reason was the versatility she'll find in Wolverines coach Kevin Borseth's offense.

"The way Michigan runs its offense, I can be on the outside or go on the inside if there's a mismatch, and that's what I like about it because that's kind of what I do now," Arnold said.

A big decision awaits

Nichols said he's hearing Johnson will be one of the top 10 recruits nationally in the Class of 2010. She's already being recruited by a bunch of high-profile schools such as Stanford, Rutgers, Duke, North Carolina, Louisiana State, Vanderbilt, Maryland, Florida, Georgia and Notre Dame, to name a few.

Johnson is being flooded with e-mails from college coaches, who are not only showing up to Montini's games but also its practices.

"It's nuts and it's exciting, and I think it's only going to expand as she just keeps getting better and better," said Nichols, who met with Johnson and her mom, Trecie, last week to start mapping out her recruiting process.

"I'm more prepared for it this year than I was last year because last year I wasn't really expecting all this," Johnson said. "I really didn't think it would be this serious and this big until now. As I'm getting older I'm understanding it more.

"I think I'll make my decision my senior year so then I'll know for sure that's where I really want to go. I don't want to have to make a commitment now or next year because what if I change my mind?"

Neither Johnson nor Arnold seek the spotlight on the court, but the team players don't mind standing out in a crowd off it.

"I really don't have a problem with being this tall," Johnson said. "I really don't want to grow any more, but my height I think is just right. I'm tall, but I'm not huge like a giant, like really, really tall. I would prefer to stay this height."

Arnold's in favor of her tallness, too.

"I think it's awesome," she said. "I love it. You know, not many girls in high school want to be tall, but I've never ever doubted my height. I've always wanted to be tall, and I love it. It makes me different."

Arnold and Johnson will be even harder to miss in the future as they take their games to greater heights.