Girls basketball notes: Plano’s Josie Larson having record-breaking season – just don’t ask her about it

Josie Larson is in the middle of a season in which she’s rewriting the Plano girls basketball record book.

Not that she’d ever tell you.

Plano’s junior guard is about as modest and soft-spoken about her personal achievements as they come. Plano coach Tristan Spivey said he’ll rebound for her in the gym and watch her shoot 1,000 shots without saying a word.

“I’ll ask her, ‘Josie, are you done?’ ” Spivey said, “and she’ll just say, ‘No.’ You wouldn’t ever know that she’s the star player after games. She’ll walk off the court, put her pajama pants on like any other student and walk out of the gym in her crocs.”

Larson indeed lets her play do the talking. It’s spoken volumes.

Spivey said she’s on pace to break eight or nine Plano scoring records this season. At 440 points, she’s six off Clarissa Martinez’s single-season scoring record from 2014 with seven regular-season games left on the schedule. Larson is about 80 points away from 1,000 for her career. Larson has scored 34 points in a game three times this season, another program record, and almost certainly will pass Martinez’s mark of 1,038 points as Plano’s all-time leading scorer.

“She broke our single-game scoring record the first game of the season, and she didn’t want to talk about it because we lost the game. That spoke volumes about her,” Spivey said. “She didn’t want me to announce that she’s close to 1,000 points, and I told her that’s not happening. She is, to a ‘T,’ a team player. She should be a poster child for future Plano players.

“If you want to be the best athlete you can be, see the work she puts in. She is the one in the gym shooting for hours and hours.”

She’s the foundation of a program that’s rediscovering winning ways.

Plano went 3-28 her freshman season and improved to 10-22 last season. The Reapers are 12-12 this season, with a shot at the program’s first winning season since 2018-19. Not bad for a team with little varsity experience before this season outside of Larson.

Larson is averaging 18.3 points, 7.1 rebounds (second on the team), a team-high 2.9 assists and 2.9 steals.

“I think the season is going good. We’ve had our ups and downs, but I think we’re still doing good,” Larson said. “I really didn’t know how the season would go because it’s such a new team.”

Larson’s scoring average has doubled from last season, but even with the extra shots and attention from defenses, she’s shooting at a higher percentage everywhere on the court. Larson is making 55.7% of her 2-point field goals, 36.1 from the 3-point line and 75% at the free-throw line.

Larson competed in the state’s 3-point shootout as a freshman, but her game is well-rounded to where she is much more than a perimeter shooter.

“It’s fun to watch. Sometimes I look at the bench and just say, ‘Wow,’ ” Spivey said. “She has learned to score at every level – layups, 3-point shots, midrange. She is making some where there’s a hand in her face. She just looks like a more mature player. The other teams key in on her, and she still gets hers.

“I’m biased, but there hasn’t been one girl step on the court that I thought could completely shut her down.”

Larson, for her part, said she doesn’t like thinking about all the records she could break. She just wants to play.

“It’s another thing that gets in my head that I try not to think about. Everybody around me is saying I’m breaking this and that,” Larson said. “I’m just going out and playing and having fun. I don’t really care how much I score. I just want to make sure we win.”

Oswego showing progress

With good youth and potential, Oswego’s players and coaches alike believed the wins would follow easier this season.

But there were growing pains.

A team that counts five sophomores among its top eight players started the season 1-7, and after a win, a seven-game losing streak followed.

“I think we got ourselves in a spot where we thought the wins could come quicker. In hindsight, maybe we were a little too ambitious with our goals,” Oswego coach Dave Lay said. “It takes time, and learning how to win is hard. We put ourselves in a tough Thanksgiving tournament, and it maybe demoralized us a little bit.

“It took longer to find our groove than it maybe should have.”

The Panthers have found something lately. Oswego won three consecutive games at the end of December and beginning of January. The Panthers lost their next three games, but only by a combined 16 points. Against Oswego East, Oswego stormed back from a 22-point deficit to take the lead in the final minutes before losing 58-53.

“We’re at pretty much the same record as we were at this time last year, but we are such a better team,” Lay said. “Our record doesn’t indicate how good we are, especially the way we’ve played the last few weeks.”

Lay noted that this team is averaging 46 or 47 points per game after averaging about 35 last season. Sophomore forward Kendall Grant is averaging over 13.1 points per game, 14.5 in conference games. Fellow sophomore Ahlivia East is averaging 7.8.

Senior Emily Mengerink is top three in scoring and rebounding, but stats alone don’t reflect her value to the Panthers.

“She’s our floor general, our leader,” Lay said. “She is someone that doesn’t come off the floor and has very few turnovers considering how much the ball is in her hand.

“Our goal was to be playing our best ball at the end of the year, and we’re trending toward that. I don’t think we will roll over for somebody in the playoffs. That’s all you can ask for, is to go down swinging.”

Parkview’s Lambes putting up huge numbers

Parkview Christian senior Gracie Lambes has been putting up eye-opening numbers of late.

Lambes scored 29 points with eight rebounds and six assists against Faith Christian Academy. She went off for 43 points, six rebounds, eight assists and 10 steals against Heritage Christian, and had 27 points, six rebounds, four assists and eight steals against Chesterton.