New-look Wave seek repeat performance

Slow. It. Down. Set. It. Up.

As the St. Edward girls basketball team made its run to the Class A Elite Eight last year, slowing it down and setting it up were rarely part of the vocabulary.

With the athleticism of players like Katie Chambers, Caiti Childers, Mary Knuth, Lindsay Birchfield and Katelyn Payne, the Green Wave's game plan last year was to fastbreak, fastbreak and fastbreak some more.

But with Chambers, Childers, Knuth and Bitchfield gone to graduation, and Payne having transferred to Fenwick, the 2007-08 version of St. Edward girls basketball has taken on a new style, one that, well, is focused on slowing it down and setting it up.

Now that doesn't mean the Green Wave won't take the fastbreak when it's available. It just means that head coach Michelle Dawson and assistants Denny Butzow and Stacey Wahlberg would rather see their team be more patient this season.

And so far, that style has worked just fine as the Wave has bolted to a 4-1 start heading into tonight's Suburban Catholic Conference game at Aurora Central Catholic.

"We're really concerned more about running a half-court offense this year," said Dawson, a St. Edward graduate and former Wave player now in her fourth year as the program's head coach. "Last year it was run-and-gun and push the ball up the floor and while we still like to do that when we can, we realize we can't spend 90 percent of our time playing defense."

The cast may have lost some key players but two mainstays -- senior Celeste VonAhnen and junior Katie Yohn -- have been two of the keys to a successful start to this season. Both returning starters, VonAhnen and Yohn have been the two big keys so far. The 6-foot-3 VonAhnen averages 9.8 points per game and well over 10 rebounds (she had 19 boards in a win over Nazareth this past weekend) while the 5-10 Yohn leads the team and the area in scoring with her 19.4 average.

"We've come out with a lot of intensity this year," said VonAhnen, who currently ranks No. 1 academically in St. Edward's senior class. "We wanted to start the season strong. We have the mentality that we never want to stop fighting. We realize we're not the same team we were last year and we're not trying to be the same team. We've got a lot of girls who are just now getting a lot of playing time."

That includes senior point guard Kelly Knott, her sophomore sister Kristi, and senior Megan Pozezinski, the other three starters, as well as senior reserves Amanda DeBrocke and Mackenzie Malone and freshman Vincenza Ranallo. Kelly Knott was a reserve on last year's state team, as were DeBrocke and Malone, but this is the first significant varsity playing time Kristi Knott and Pozezinski, who missed last season with an ACL injury, have had. Pozezinski won the Nazareth game for the Wave with 2 free throws with 12 seconds to play.

"The girls are coming along nicely," Dawson said. "Megan always draws the toughest defensive assignment and the Knotts have stepped up. We're trying to get Celeste involved more offensively and when that happens it will open the perimeter up more for Katie."

Yohn, who played AAU ball with VonAhnen on the Illinois Lady Lightning and is drawing interest from several Big Ten schools, is pleased with the way her team has made the adjustment in style.

"We've started to run our offense through more and cut down on the fastbreaks," she said. "Last year we were a run-and-gun team and this year we know we have to slow it down. In AAU they reach us to run through our plays and get good open looks and I think we've adapted to that pretty well so far."

VonAhnen agrees.

"We realize we're not going to get away with fastbreaking every play like last year," she said. "We just want to focus and slow it down. I want to become more of a scoring threat. I haven't done that very well and that's the biggest thing."

Coming into the season, it' didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out Yohn would be the Wave's go-to player offensively. She averaged 13.3 points per game in being selected as an all-area player last season and with the scoring of Chambers and Payne gone, it put that burden squarely on Yohn's shoulders this year. But that's just fine with her.

"I don't really feel any pressure," she said. "I just go out and have fun with my friends, try to win and try to get everybody involved. We just want to work hard and do our best to get downstate again."

As with any successful team, chemistry is important and Dawson likes what she sees from this team so far.

"We have really good chemistry this year," Dawson said. "The girls get along really well and these kids are very coachable. You explain something to them and they really try to listen and work to get it right."

That includes another area of the game St. Edward is focused on -- rebounding.

"We lost Mary and Chambers, two of our top rebounders, and we've been working hard this year on boxing out because we're a smaller team," Yohn said. "This year feels a lot different; it's a different group of girls. I was used to seeing Chamber or Mary down low and Childers or Birch bringing the ball up the floor. It's different but I'm starting to get used to it."

Dawson is happy to have basketball mentalities like Yohn's and VonAhnen's leading her team.

"They put an incredible amount of time into basketball in the offseason and I think that's commendable because they both play other sports," Dawson said. "They still found time to get some extra time for basketball. They're very dedicated kids. The other girls see them and their work ethic and they want to match that. Katie and Celeste bring us up to the next level in practice."

The next level is where St. Edward would like to be again by the end of the season. Having tasted the state tournament experience, the Green Wave would like to make it a repeat performance.

"The end is what pushes us every day," Dawson said. "We don't talk about it every day but having been through it we know what it's going to take to get back there. We know there are things we need to do to get better."

And this group of Green Wave players appear to be ready to do whatever it takes to get the job done again.