D.C. basketball notebook: Friendship Collegiate boys build an identity; Ayonna Williams is Ballou’s constant

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/highschools/dc-basketball-notebook-friendship-collegiate-boys-build-an-identity-ayonna-williams-is-ballous-constant/2016/02/08/a8d14a5c-ce97-11e5-b2bc-988409ee911b_story.html

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After senior Alani Moore hit the acrobatic game-winner and an entire sideline spilled onto the court in celebration, the Friendship Collegiate boys’ basketball team gathered in a circle and, on first-year Coach Bryan Bartley’s cue, collectively exhaled. They’ve started doing this a lot lately, to ease the tension during a season full of drama.

But after the Knights began this season with nine-straight losses — some were forfeits for using ineligible players — they’ve reeled off six-consecutive wins to take control of the D.C. Public Charter School Athletic Association standings. None were more satisfying than Saturday’s 60-58 victory at Riverdale Baptist.

“We believe in our captain, so we put the ball in his hands and he finished it off,” senior Emmanuel Johnson said. (Watch Moore’s game-winning shot here.)

Finding these set roles proved much harder than Bartley expected when he came to the Northeast charter school from Montrose Christian this past offseason.

Several players followed him from Montrose and the team went through a lengthy residency investigation by the Office of the State Superintendent and seniors LeAndre Thomas and Ike Okwara were not cleared to play until last month, and Friendship (6-9) was forced to forfeit games that Thomas and Okwara appeared in over the holiday break.

But the Knights haven’t lost since those two were officially allowed to return to the floor on Jan. 19, and “we’re actually coming together and bonding and developing a relationship,” said Johnson, an O’Connell transfer who hit a three-pointer with less than three minutes remaining to give Friendship the lead against Riverdale Baptist Saturday.

The Knights have their sights set on qualifying for the D.C. State Athletic Association tournament, hoping it will serve as a proving ground for this new roster. Despite the shaky start, they were slotted into the No. 10 seed in the latest DCSAA postseason projections after this recent hot streak.

“We kept our head and kept fighting and got back to where we needed to be,” said Moore, a Temple recruit. “You’ve got to take everybody the same way, play everybody the same way and that’s just my mentality.”

The success hasn’t been without nerve-wracking moments. On top of beating defending PCSAA champion IDEA in overtime last month with Thomas and Okwara back, the Knights also needed two last-second free throws from Moore to defeat IDEA, 63-62, in overtime last Thursday.

About 48 hours later, he delivered in the clutch again. Moore finished with 25 points going head-to-head with Riverdale Baptist’s Jamal Wright, a High Point recruit, but did his best work late.

Following a timeout with nine seconds remaining in regulation, Moore caught the ball on the wing, found his way through two defenders and swished a runner before the buzzer sounded.

“They’re starting to find ways to win no matter what,” Bartley said. “We’re starting to create an identity.”

Ballou senior Ayonna Williams doesn’t notice much of a difference, even if the make-up of the girls’ basketball team around her seems to change all the time. She’s on her fourth coach in four years and watched a nucleus of seniors graduate from last winter’s roster. And yet her ability to score in bunches remains unquestioned.

“I can’t let that bother me,” Williams said. “I’ve got to score so we can win some games.”

Ballou (7-6) enters the final weeks of a tumultuous campaign battling for one of the last spots in this year’s DCSAA tournament, and it’s a credit to Williams’s perseverance after a mid-season coaching change last month.

Ballou Athletic Director Kevin Green said he could not comment on the decision to replace former Coach Nathaniel Vereen with Andrew Gaston ahead of the Knights’ Jan. 15 game against McKinley Tech because he was not authorized to talk publicly about personnel issues. Gaston previously coached the Knights for five years before the school replaced him with Yolanda Lavender before last season.

“I came on a Wednesday and we had a game on Friday,” Gaston said.

But nobody — not school administrators, the revolving door of coaches or opposing players — could slow down Williams. After scoring a career-high 42 points in a loss to Bell in December, she poured in 38 points in Ballou’s most recent win over Dunbar on Jan. 29.

She refuses to wilt under the burden of carrying her inexperienced team.

“They see me score, when they get the ball, they’ll try to score, too,” Williams said. “It’s just pushing us.”