By Matt Florjancic
MaxPreps.com
Participating in athletics at Elyria Catholic is a family tradition if your last name happens to be Taylor.
Following in the footsteps of her father and two older brothers, sophomore point guard Emily Taylor made an immediate impact in her first high school season. Now, Taylor is looking to accomplish more this winter.
After starting the season 2-0 with victories over Midview and Columbia, the Panthers dropped their North Coast League opener at Bedford St. Peter Chanel. Though Elyria Catholic had six days to think about that game and will host its holiday tournament over the weekend, Taylor and the Panthers are ready for their January 24 rematch with Chanel.
“It started off as good as it could ever be,” Taylor said. “Our Chanel loss we had was a bummer. We bounced back from it already and we’re ready to focus on our holiday tournament.
“We’re already counting down the days until we play Chanel again,” she added. “That will be at home. We’re looking at getting our whole student body there. We want that game to be as big as our season opener against Midview. That’s the game we want to focus on now because of what has just happened. We’re going to be working every game and every practice toward that game.”
Starting off with a loss in the North Coast League was not exactly what Elyria Catholic had hoped for. With long bus trips and strong teams waiting for their chance to stop Taylor, the Panthers feel the loss to Chanel was a wake-up call.
“We have Hoban, Lake [Catholic] and all those D-I schools that could be better than us, but I think we could compete with every single team in our conference now,” Taylor said. “In years past, we weren’t so strong, but we’ve built the standard of being a competitor in our league.”
Taylor’s ability to run a team is one of the reasons Elyria Catholic finds itself thinking about NCL championships.
“Not only is she very athletic and gifted, she loves the game,” first-year Panthers head coach Eric Rothgery said. “She watches basketball on TV [and] goes to watch every game she can see locally to see good things and bad things other players do. She’s a student of the game.
“She has a great presence on the court,” he added. “She has great vision of the court. She’s a great passer. Her overall presence and knowledge of the game make her a great all-around player.”
Taylor does not limit her athletic pursuits to basketball. She is a member of Elyria Catholic’s soccer team in the fall and joins the Panthers on the softball diamond once the basketball season is complete.
“Next year, she may do just a little more basketball,” Rothgery said. “She made all-county first team as a shortstop on the softball team. I think she’s going to limit those extras. I don’t believe she can play soccer anymore.”
Competing is something Taylor has done since she was a child. She sought out and found the best possible competition.
“Growing up with my brothers, the family that I grew up in is real competitive,” Taylor said. “I didn’t get much slack being a girl growing up with two older brothers. I’ve been playing [AAU] since I was in third grade. I played with my age and with an older team. That helped me because I got to play against people that were older than me. They wouldn’t treat me like I was younger. It was just like high school coming in as a freshman. The seniors weren’t treating me as a freshman. They were treating me as everybody else.”
In addition to Taylor running the point, Elyria Catholic has two impact players on the low blocks. Sophomore Ashley Schuster and junior Sara Schneider are able to play with their backs to the basket and pursue rebounds against taller defenders.
“We’ve got a junior sitting on the bench that started her freshman and sophomore years in the post,” Rothgery said. “I don’t have that 6-foot, 6-1 post, but I’ll take three 5-10s against anybody. It’s nice for Emily because she gets into the lane and people pressure her. She’s able to drop it off to others.
“If you’ve got a good point guard in girls high school basketball, you’ve got a lot,” he added. “It’s nice to know that we have Emily out there for the next couple years. We’ve got others that can handle the ball. It’s a real luxury to have that many girls that can handle the ball. This is my first year being the head coach at EC, but this is my sixth year in the program. We’ve never had this much ball-handling on a team.”
“I love it a lot,” Taylor said of having good post players. “It feels like I have no pressure on me. My team always takes all the pressure off of me when I need it. When I tell them I need help, they come and help me. They have no problem with stepping up and that’s what I love about all the players on my team.”
With two-plus years left at Elyria Catholic, Rothgery sees Taylor as a physically gifted player who will only get better.
“For her, she needs to continue to work on the mental approach,” Rothgery said. “The physical part of basketball she has down. She can get to the hoop better than any guard that I’ve seen. It’s all about keeping the mental approach where it needs to be. People try to rough her up, push her around, anything to frustrate her. She’s got to do what she can do not to get frustrated by some of those antics that other teams pull.
“Ninety-five percent of the games she’s going to walk on the floor, she’s going to be the best athlete,” he concluded. “Now, it’s time for her to become the best conditioned athlete on the floor. She is in good condition, but when she has the ball in her hands, she exerts a ton of energy. She just needs to continue that for longer stretches. Emily’s all about the team and the team winning. Sometimes, she doesn’t realize how good she is.”
Matt Florjancic currently works as a freelance reporter and sports announcer for WOBL and WDLW Radio.
