Smith, Orr top girls’ all-area team
Todd Thompson
Hartselle Enquirer
FLORETTE — Chelsey Smith stepped up when the Brewer girls’ basketball program needed her the most.
A reserve as a junior, Smith saw her duties with the Lady Patriots change from a situational replacement to an offensive threat a year later and she flourished in the role.
Smith averaged 17.2 points and 8.1 rebounds per game this season. She finished with double-digit point totals in all 31 of the Lady Patriots’ games this season and reached double figures in both points and rebounds five times.
Last year, when the Lady Patriots reached the Class 5A state championship game, Smith saw significant action when Brewer had several starters foul out of the game.
A year later, Smith was leading the Lady Patriots’ offense on the way to earning 2010 Hartselle Enquirer player of the year honors.
“I just waited my turn,” Smith said. “This year, I had to step up for my team, especially offensively.”
Brewer head coach Ricky Allen has seen Smith’s talent grow through her time with the junior varsity program until she stepped into a starting role as a senior.
“I’ve been waiting for Chelsey to step up to the next level since the 10th grade,” Allen said. “We’ve had so many good players at Brewer over the last few years and she just had to wait for her time.
“As a junior, we had one of the best teams that we’ve ever had at Brewer. But this year, we lost a lot of good players and I knew that I would need Chelsey to be a shooter.”
Hartselle head coach Gary Orr, who led the Lady Tigers back to the Northwest Regionals, was chosen as the girls’ all-area coach of the year.
Smith and Orr were joined on the all-area first team by the Lady Patriots’ Elizabeth Bromirski, Hartselle’s Alex Holmes, and Priceville’s Presley Darling and Melissa Johnson.
Bromirski led Brewer with 17.3 points per game and set school records for 3-pointers made in a game, in a season and her 43 percent 3-point shooting also was the best in school history.
Holmes finished with 12.4 points and 7.2 rebounds per game despite facing much larger defenders in almost every Hartselle game the past three seasons.
She helped lead Hartselle to the Northwest Regionals every season she played on the varsity.
Darling, a junior at Priceville, reached the 1,000-point mark this season. She led the Lady Bulldogs with 13.4 points and 8.8 points per game as Priceville reached the Northwest Regional for the second straight season.
Johnson also scored 1,000 points during her career at Priceville after averaging 10.9 points and eight rebounds per game as a senior. She will play at Wallace-Hanceville next year.
Hartselle’s Katie Young and Taylor White topped the second team and were joined by Priceville’s Molly Thompson and Danville’s Lacey Evans and Kayloni Cross.
