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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Retired head basketball coach at Westminster-Oak Mountain Dana Gache stands with 2020 graduates Virginia Welch, Morgan White and Megan Gache on May 5. Gache has coached the Westminster-Oak Mountain girls basketball team for six years, at and Welch, White and Megan Gache have played basketball with each other since second grade.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Westminster-Oak Mountain’s Virginia Welch (11) returns the ball at the net during a Class 1A state tournament match against Athens Bible School on Oct. 30 at the Birmingham CrossPlex.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Westminster-Oak Mountain forward Morgan White (2) moves to steal the ball from Altamont forward Ava Muller (11) during the Class 1A-3A girls final game during the Class 1A-3A girls final May 10, 2019, at John Hunt Park in Huntsville.
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Staff photo.
Megan Gache (14) drives through the defense during a Class 1A semifinal basketball game between Westminster and Phillips on Feb. 25, 2019, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham.
If she’s being honest, Morgan White just liked the stars and the cookies.
“I didn’t even try to win, I just wanted the stars,” she admits, 10 years later.
White could earn stars to be ironed on her second-grade Upward basketball jersey. And if she did something exceptional, she could earn the cookie coach Dana Gache would present to a single player each game.
Little did Dana know what that season of coaching the likes of White, Virginia Welch and her own daughter, Megan, would lead to over the next several years. Dana coached the three of them every basketball season, including school and summer seasons, from that year all the way through their recently completed senior year at The Westminster School at Oak Mountain.
“It just kind of happened,” Dana said. They blazed quite a trail along the journey.
SUCCESS ON THE HARDWOOD
Dana Gache is an attorney by day. There was never an original intention to coach her daughter’s age group at a high level. But the pieces fell into place each step of the way. After a year of Upward ball, the girls moved into the Over the Mountain basketball league for several years. There were also years with the Magic City Steel AAU team.
Once they reached middle school, she stepped into coaching the school teams, which were all in their infancy at Westminster. She never left.
“It just kind of worked out well,” Dana said. “About the time they moved up, we would be ready to do something more aggressive, so the school just asked me to coach. I loved it, loved coaching them.”
It didn’t hurt that many of those teams Dana coached were highly competitive. She said she could tell early on that Megan’s group would be able to win plenty of games, even as the years went on.
“Oh yeah, very much so,” Dana said. “They’re just competitors.”
They proved those words along the way. As seventh-graders, Megan and White were on the varsity team full time, while Welch split time with the middle school and varsity teams. But they all remember one particular game.
In the sub-regional round of the 2015 Class 1A playoffs, Westminster fell to Loachapoka. It’s not the loss that got their attention. It was the score.
63-8.
“I kept telling them we’re going to play this team until we beat them,” Dana said.
Westminster’s matchups with Loachapoka became a measuring stick for the Lady Knights program. They closed the gap the following year, but Loachapoka still knocked them out in the sub-regional round, 42-20.
The 2017 postseason matchup had a different ending. A 51-40 victory over Loachapoka sent the Westminster girls basketball program to the state final four at the BJCC for the first time in program history.
The bright lights of the Civic Center were a new experience for the trio, freshmen at the time.
“We had been training and preparing for this, but we were still kind of in shock a little,” Megan recalled. “I remember being super intimidated by how big the gym was and how many people were in there.”
The Lady Knights held a late lead but fell to R.A. Hubbard 48-44 in the 1A state semifinals. That result left the team confident and hungry about the future.
“We proved we could do this,” Welch said. “We had the coaching that we needed to get back here. Knowing where we’ve come from and the fundamentals we had, we knew we’d be back there one day.”
She was right. Westminster returned to the state final four in 2019, propelled by a thrilling victory over a Pleasant Home squad that featured current Florida State player River Baldwin in the regional semifinals.
The Lady Knights fell in the state semifinals to Phillips, hindered by a poor shooting performance. But the Pleasant Home game remains a strong positive memory.
“The girls really saw, it came down to competitiveness,” Dana said. “They were going to go down fighting and they got it.”
BECOMING LEADERS
Ahead of their senior campaign, the trio of senior team captains departed the preseason media day and ate together at Panda Express, where the three laid out hopes and goals for the 2020 season. They ultimately fell to Elba in the regional final, but they felt as if they did what they set out to do.
“We gave it our all,” Megan said. “I don’t have any regrets for the season. We pushed ourselves, pushed our team, encouraged everybody. Overall, it went well.”
After losing a group of impactful seniors from the previous season, Dana admitted some uncertainty as to how the team dynamic would evolve. They surpassed any reasonable expectations, leading a young team with eight freshmen to a strong year.
“They were in unison,” Dana said of the three seniors on this year’s squad. “Their competitiveness grew together this year to propel the team. I’m not sure we could’ve gotten as far as we did without that.”
It was a situation not much different than four years ago, when Megan, White and Welch were productive players on a successful team as freshmen.
“They have a bright future ahead of them, no doubt,” Welch said. “It was a lot of learning for us as leaders, to give grace and be patient, but also push them and learn from them as players.”
FINDING THEIR WAY
As much as their paths have revolved around basketball growing up, Megan, White and Welch will pursue other avenues as they move on to college.
White has played soccer since she could run, more or less. As good of a basketball player as she is, her future will be paved on the soccer field. White will head to South Alabama on a soccer scholarship after starring on Westminster’s soccer team. She also helped lead that team to its first state championship in 2019.
White also dabbled in cross-country and track and field during her time at Westminster, but she has known for many years that soccer would be her sport moving forward.
Megan and Welch’s organized athletic careers have come to an end, however. Megan played in the state tennis tournament with Westminster in 2019 and has been off and on with horseback riding throughout her childhood. Welch was a key part of Westminster’s state runner-up volleyball in 2019 as well, along with competing in tennis, track and field and cross-country at various points.
Megan is heading to Kentucky, while Welch plans to attend Auburn. For all three, their new schools will feature instructional classes bigger than their own graduating class of 32.
“There’s a lot of growth and I’ve been able to see everyone in my grade take these big steps and it’s been really cool,” Welch said.
A PROGRAM IN GOOD HANDS
Now that Megan’s basketball career has run its course, Dana is stepping away from coaching the game, at least on a full-time basis. Aimee Harris will take over as the Westminster head coach. Harris has coached the middle school and junior varsity teams in recent seasons. KaKa Mixon will continue to serve as an assistant coach.
“The girls know her [Harris],” Dana said.“Her and KaKa are going to pick it up from there. The team is still relatively young, but in a year or two, they’re going to have a really strong team. There’s a big group of competitors moving through.”
Between White, Megan and Welch, the three of them hold every significant record in Westminster girls basketball history. With the Lady Knights ascending to Class 2A next year, the hope is that the lessons Dana and those three instilled with the team will begin to pay dividends.
“They’ve got some big shoes to fill next year,” Dana said.
There are no more cookies or stars for Dana to hand out, but don’t be surprised if she still hangs around the Westminster program in future seasons.
“It’s going to be a shock. I just kind of stumbled into it and now I’m thinking, ‘What am I going to do without it?’” she said.
Comments (1)
Comment FeedGreat School--Great Athletes
Russell C Gache 115 days ago