Photo by Kyle Parmley
Aukeivah Tellis (15) is one of the Lady Cougars’ top returning scorers this season.
Considering that the Clay-Chalkville High School girls basketball team lost one of its top players just before the season, the 2017-18 campaign could have been much worse.
Khali Johnson, the Lady Cougars’ presumed starting point guard and likely one of their top scorers, suffered a knee injury in the preseason and missed the entire year. In her stead, several others had to step into different roles and perform.
“When Khali got hurt, I wasn’t overly encouraged by that,” head coach Justin Haynie said. “To be honest, the kids kind of surprised me.”
Instead of folding, the Lady Cougars put together an impressive season, posting an 18-10 record and advancing to the Class 6A sub-regional round. They won tournaments at Gadsden City andClay Mountain Brook, finished as the runners-up in the Jefferson-Shelby Hoops Classic and played in the Area 12 championship game.
Clay-Chalkville graduated Mekaila Hill and Darci Champion, two longtime contributors to the program, but the Lady Cougars return a great deal of their scoring production from last winter and welcome Johnson back to the fold.
Monika Johnson, Erica Lockhart and Aukeivah Tellis were the team’s top three scorers from a season ago. With the scoring ability of those three aided by Khali Johnson’s skills as well, Haynie likes the offensive potential of his team.
“Offensively, we should be able to score as well as we have in the past,” Haynie said. “It’ll be a little tougher to guard us now, because you can’t key on one or two particular players; we’ve got four or five that can score double digits on any night.”
If there is an issue with having all of that production back, it would be that they all play in the backcourt. With Khali Johnson out last season, Monika Johnson and Lockhart stepped into that point guard’s role. Now that Khali Johnson is back, that gives Haynie a handful of guards to mix and match.
With Hill’s departure, Clay-Chalkville doesn’t have a consistent scoring threat returning in the post, although there are some candidates to step up there. Tamyia Muse, Lakerrya Moulton and Kamryn English are among the players that will get a chance to contribute.
Michelle Jones, Tamerria Tatum and Olivia Watson will also help the Lady Cougars over the course of the season.
Clay-Chalkville began its season in early November and plays in tournaments at Shades Valley and Spain Park over the course of December.
Update 11/29: Kamryn English is out for the season with an injury.
