Photo by Sarah Finnegan
Chelsea junior forward Jordan Parker (11) is the Lady Hornets’ top returning rebounder and will be relied upon heavily this winter.
The Chelsea High School girls basketball team is probably being overlooked by many.
That wouldn’t be a surprise to new head coach Jason Harlow. The Lady Hornets are coming off a disappointing 2017-18 campaign that saw them win just five games, only a season removed from a Class 6A sub-regional berth.
To compound things, Chelsea will also be looking to replace their two leading scorers after the graduation of Hope Richard and the transfer of Michaella Edwards, who is completing her final year of high school at Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga.
But if anything, that has made the players coming back to the Lady Hornets hungry to prove doubters wrong.
“The kids kind of have a chip on their shoulder,” said Harlow, who takes over as head coach following a year spent as the junior varsity coach. “The kids want to prove that we’ve got a solid group and we can still be a player within the area.”
Harlow is originally from Missouri and he spent seven years as a high school coach in the St. Louis area. He and his wife were in Jacksonville, Florida, for four years before moving to the Birmingham area last year. When the program decided to go in a different direction at the head coaching position, Harlow applied and was named head coach at Chelsea toward the end of the 2017-18 school year.
“It’s a great school district and like the one I came out of in Missouri,” Harlow said. “A bunch of blue-collar, hard-working kids. We probably didn’t accomplish some of the goals we set out last year, so there’s a lot of work ahead of us. But to be at Chelsea, it’s a good place to be at and I’m very appreciative of the opportunity.”
Harlow is encouraged by the fact that the team’s biggest strength coincides with the style of play the Lady Hornets aim to put on the floor.
“We want to get up and down the floor, and we want to be very aggressive on the defensive end and play an up-tempo game,” he said. “We have the personnel to do that.”
In order to play that way, depth is required. Chelsea has that, with at least 10 players returning that logged some sort of varsity time last season.
And for Harlow’s maiden season as head coach, he’ll have just one senior in Ali Richard. Despite being on the junior varsity team last year, Harlow said she improved greatly over the summer and is one of the team’s hardest workers.
Juniors Jordan Parker and Pressley Rains are the top two returners for the Lady Hornets. Parker has been on varsity since her freshman year and is a double-double threat every game with her ability to rebound. Rains is the team’s top returning scorer and is one of the team’s best perimeter defenders.
The emergence of sophomore Ellen Fleming and freshman Sydney Schwallie at the point guard spot has allowed Chelsea to move Suzanne Ridgway to the small forward position. Ridgway averaged over three assists per game last season, and Harlow said the team would still rely on her ball-handling ability in pressure situations.
Emily Lamberson is hoping for a strong junior season after battling injuries last year. Katie Goss, MacKenzie Titus, Callie Smith, Claire Neuberger, Tiarre Banks and Shaniyya Robertson round out the varsity squad. Riley Williams will coach the junior varsity team.
