By RICHIE HALL
Reporter Sports Editor
From her freshman year to her senior year, Audrey Reed helped the Sheridan girls basketball team make history.
In her first year as a player for the Blackhawks, Reed was part of a team that won a sectional championship. Three years later, Reed will graduate as Sheridan’s leading overall scorer. Along the way, there have been victories, championships, and many other of the tangible and intangible rewards that only playing Indiana high school basketball can bring.
“I feel like through the years, I’ve grown as a leader,” said Reed. “I obviously really value basketball, and I just want to get everyone else to at least give an effort. Just try and get them to compete, go out and have fun and just do the best they can.”
Reed certainly did her best for Sheridan. She scored 1,724 career points as a Blackhawk, which not only puts her on top of the Sheridan list (for both girls and boys), but it also makes her second in the county. Reed finished her career behind only Noblesville’s legendary Courtney Cox and her 1,869 points.
Remarkably, Reed’s record came one year after another all-time Blackhawks great established a grand total. Brittany Welch, a 2017 Sheridan graduate, finished her career with 1,649 points. So Reed and Welch are second and third respectively among county girls, and are eighth and ninth on the overall (girls and boys) list.
Reed broke the record on Jan. 9 of this year during the Blackhawks’ game at Kokomo, where she scored 37 points.
“It was really rewarding since it was a goal of mine since freshman year,” said Reed. “It felt good to see and feel the hard work pay off.”
She also enjoyed the support of her teammates as well, something that stretched back to when she was a freshman. Reed admitted to being intimidated when she first came on the team as a ninth-grader, but said the seniors helped her fit in.
“That was the first year we won a sectional at all,” said Reed. “That just made it really fun to be a part of and that showed me leadership and stuff that I needed to see as a freshman.”
“To play the point on a senior-dominant team is quite an accomplishment, to be able to step in and play with those kids,” said Sheridan coach Jeff Guenther. “Not only play with them, but fit in and to be a key member.”
Guenther noted that the Blackhawks had gone about 30 years between 1000-point scorers, but have now had four players reach that mark over the past 10 years. “Which shows what kinds of kids we’re getting these days,” said Guenther.
Every year, the bar was set higher: First was Jaidlin Delph at 1,194 points, followed by Tyler Jones setting the boys’ all-time mark at 1,627 points. Then came Welch, followed by Reed.
“The thing about Audrey is, Audrey never talked about records,” said Guenther. “She talked about winning. She talked about sectionals and conference championships. We didn’t meet all of those goals, but that was always her priority. Her priority wasn’t to be at the top of the scoring list. That’s a result of her competing to win. I think that’s her biggest strength.”
Winning the sectional was a milestone for the Sheridan girls, as they had never won one before. The Blackhawks soared past three established programs (Taylor, Tipton and Elwood) to win at the Tipton sectional, culminating in a 67-52 victory over Elwood on Feb. 14, 2015. Reed scored 24 points in that triumph.
“It felt really rewarding,” said Reed. “I was excited.”
While she said winning the sectional was a big goal of hers, she admitted that she didn’t feel like she understood the importance of it at the time.
“Not every team gets this opportunity,” said Reed. “My sophomore and junior and senior year, I didn’t get the opportunity to win a sectional. So now looking back on it, obviously it means a lot more to me. I wish I would’ve cherished it more in the moment.”
And does she cherish it now?
“Of course,” she said. Once a sectional champion, always a sectional champion.
The path to a successful high school career begins years before a player reaches ninth grade. Reed was no different in that she was a middle-school girl who saw the older girls playing high school ball, and wanted to follow in their footsteps.
“When I was in middle school, I always looked up to the high school girls,” said Reed. “It was always something I was excited to be a part of, is the high school teams. Obviously I worked hard to be able to get the opportunity to play with the varsity team.”
“High school basketball is about developing relationships, and I’m fortunate that I get to see these kids early,” said Guenther. “I can see them as sixth graders, seventh graders, eighth graders, have them in class. And just to watch her develop and mature into just an outstanding young lady has been really tremendous for me, personally.”
Guenther said that since girls physically mature earlier than boys, they’re able to do things at the junior high level that boys usually can’t. But once they get into a practice situation and show their work ethic, it’s up to them to put in the time to develop.
“You can tell at sixth or seventh grade that you have a kid that has the potential to be a good player,” said Guenther. “But you don’t know if that kid’s going to be a great player. That’s something they have to have inside of them. You can’t teach that, you can’t coach that.”
As a point guard, Reed was often put in pressure situations. But she embraced it, bringing to mind the title of a book written by tennis legend Billie Jean King: “Pressure is a Privilege.”
“I really enjoyed it because I’m really competitive,” said Reed. “I really enjoyed leading them and just really doing my best, trying to get everyone to just do the best for the team. Just to get a good outcome.”
“There’s a lot of trust involved there,” said Guenther. “I trusted her to have the ball in her hands a lot for four years. There’s a lot of pressure on her and Brittany as well when Brittany was here. There’s a lot of pressure on those two kids, specifically on her running the point. A lot of kids can’t handle that. She thrived under that, with that pressure. That’s a sign of a really quality player.”
Another impressive thing about Reed’s record is the fact that Sheridan significantly upgraded its schedule over the past four years. Reed didn’t score her points in a vacuum. She scored them against many quality teams, including top Class 4A programs such as Plainfield, Zionsville and Martinsville, all of whom where opponents at one time.
“She put up big numbers against big teams,” said Guenther. “She had big nights when we needed her to have big nights.” That included 33 points against Lapel on Dec. 27.
“We needed every one of those,” said Guenther. “She didn’t build this record on the weak part of our schedule. She built it in the most difficult part of our schedule. It’s going to stand for a long time, I think.”
Audrey Reed played a big role in Sheridan girls basketball history during her four years as a Blackhawk. Reed was part of the first-ever Sheridan girls basketball sectional championship as a freshman, and graduates as its all-time leading scorer with 1,724 points. (Kirk Green/File photo)