And a child shall lead them. All across the state of Georgia, freshmen are helping their high school teams advance in the state playoffs by shouldering more of a load than ever before. At North Gwinnett, Taylor Burns, the team’s second leading scorer, notched her 15th goal of the season to put her Lady Bulldogs team into the Final Four with a 1-0 win. Diamond DeShields and Kaela Davis teamed up to win the girls Class AAAAA basketball championship earlier this year and the Lassiter Trojans won its first undefeated region crown with Tyren Jones toting the ball at tailback. College coaches have had to start relying on true freshmen to contribute immediately and that has seemed to trickle down to the high school level as well in Georgia. Are the expectations too much too soon for some kids? Are coaches worried that inexperience might do in a young player and thus his/her team in the playoffs. Most coaches say that age is just a number.
“I really don’t look at grade but rather ability,” says Roberta Manheim, who has used many freshmen in big spots on her way to winning 133 straight matches and seven straight titles with the Walton Raiders girls tennis team. “Everyone on the team knows she is a part of something special. They are [on the team] because they have the ability to be part of the team and need to be ready to play.” Manheim rotated in two freshmen on this season’s team but in years past as many as four were playing in the starting lineup. Manheim uses the doubles teams as a learning ground to get the freshmen ready to play and will usually defer to an upperclassman if the freshman and senior are pretty equal in ability, but Manheim admits that most of her freshmen aren’t inexperienced. “My girls are experienced tournament players and have a mental toughness that is unequaled.”
Drew Prentice, the Collins Hill Boys soccer coach needed some of his freshmen to provide depth this season, especially when the team was rocked early on by injuries. “Although we did lose some very key players in the first game of the year, we had players step up and fill those roles.” Prentice has an incredible senior class this season but realizes the opportunity that his freshmen are getting. “On the field the underclassmen probably learn more from just competing with the seniors than they would ever learn from any drill or activity.” The competing that freshman goalkeeper Jackson Taylor endured no doubt helped him in the state championship game when he stopped two PKs to help the Eagles clinch the Class AAAAA title. On the field training isn’t a luxury anymore with freshmen, it is a necessity for success in the current season as well as the future.
Former Olympian Debbie Miller-Palmore watched the Norcross duo during the season and in the state playoffs and noted that what DeShields was doing reminded her of former Collins Hill standout Maya Moore. Miller-Palmore, who served as color commentator for Georgia Public Broadcasting, marveled several times during the season at how athletic and poised DeShields was, remarkable for being so young. Davis was also impressive in having a point guard’s ball-handling ability in a 6’7 frame. Tennessee’s Pat Summitt was impressed by both that she stopped by a Norcross game earlier this season to watch both, despite the fact that the earliest they could suit up for the Lady Vols would be Fall of 2013.
But how do the freshmen feel, not just playing with older and more experienced players but contributing in big ways? Does the freshman feel guilty for getting on the field so early? Starstruck? Nervous? Gracie White made Grady’s girls varsity soccer team as a freshman and got over her nerves quickly. “Whoever was the best in practice and tried the hardest got to play, regardless of age.” She noted that while the coaches were excited to have freshmen on the team, some of the older players were a bit hesitant at first. “Once they saw what we could do, everything was OK. Once you play [as a freshman] then you create a bond with the other players.”
The bottom line is that what your grandparents have said for years is true: age is just a number. Clubs teams, year-round traveling squads and little league have all given freshmen a leg up on freshmen from ten or twenty years ago, when a season or two on the JV was the norm. In the state of Georgia a child shall indeed lead them, sometimes all the way to a state championship.
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