Danni Williams has Clovis as the top seed entering New Mexico 5A state tournament

Danni Williams kept getting back up.

No matter how many times she engaged in bloody basketball battles — literally — with her older brother, Dustin, Williams refused to stay down.

"One time when I was playing one-on-one with my brother, I got so mad that I grabbed the ball and threw it as hard as I could at him," Williams said. "It smacked him right in the face. He's a lot older (by six years) than me and was a defensive end in high school, and he got mad and tackled me. It didn't end up good."

The fighting spirit Williams displayed in hundreds of one-on-one games with her brother is still evident today whenever the Clovis standout guard takes the court. The 5-foot-9 Williams is averaging 20.4 points, 4.7 rebounds and four steals per game for the Wildcats (26-2), who are the top-ranked team in New Mexico and 33rd nationally in the MaxPreps Freeman Rankings.

Top-seed Clovis hosts 16th-seeded Alamogordo (14-13) in a 5A state tournament opener on Friday. Although there are a number of quality teams in the field — No. 2 seed Mayfield (Las Cruces), No. 3 Cibola (Albuquerque) and No. 4 Hobbs, just to name a few — the Wildcats have to be considered the favorite because of the 16-year-old Williams, who has already been offered 10 scholarships from prominent Division I programs — and she's only a sophomore.

"Danni does it all," Wildcats coach Jeff Reed said. "She's a very good ballhandler, a good shooter and she's got great court sense. To see how advanced she is for a sophomore makes you get really excited to see what she'll be like in the next couple of years. If her game continues to grow, it's going to be exciting to see because she's already doing a lot of amazing things."

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That's why University of New Mexico head coach Yvonne Sanchez offered Williams a scholarship at the beginning of Williams' freshman year. Several other schools have offered scholarships since, including Kansas and Texas Tech.

Williams said she already has a good rapport with Sanchez, Kansas head coach Bonnie Henrickson and Texas Tech head coach Kristy Curry.

"Right now Kansas is probably my top choice because of family," said Williams, whose grandparents live about an hour away from the Kansas campus. "But I talk to all of those coaches almost every Sunday, and there are a lot of good things about each program."

Despite being in the spotlight, Williams has taken the attention in stride.

"My parents (Regan and Michelle) are pretty hard on me in terms of staying focused and reaching my goals," Williams said. "They push me to work hard and be the best I can be."

Williams credits her father and brother for developing her determination and toughness.

"My dad has given me a lot of good advice, and he also let my brother and I go on the basketball court," Williams said. "Sometimes Dustin and I would get in fistfights, and it got pretty dirty. But in the end all those games I played with my brother made me stronger — no matter how physical it got."

Even though Williams often lost her temper against her brother, she's become Clovis' quiet leader.

"I don't really talk on the court," she said. "I want people to follow me by my actions. I know if I get mad or frustrated, then everyone else on the team will get frustrated."

Williams scored a team-high 21 points, Brandi Gomez had 16 and Carrie Sharp 15 in the Wildcats' 68-39 win over rival Hobbs last Saturday in the District 5-4A championship game. It was the fifth meeting between the teams this season — Clovis holds a 3-2 advantage — and they could end up playing for a sixth time in the state semifinals.

"Wouldn't that be something? I can't even describe how awesome the Clovis-Hobbs rivalry is," Reed said.

Even though Williams started bouncing a basketball from the moment she could walk, her favorite passion growing up was riding dirt bikes. When Williams won a Motorcross National Association race at age 10, she saw a future on two wheels. However, Williams' dad forced her to quit the sport a year later, citing safety issues.

"I was devastated," Williams said. "I'm still upset to this day. I still have one of my dirt bikes, but he doesn't let me ride it. I guess my dad knew best."

Indeed, the greatest sign of respect for Williams' preternatural basketball talent has come from the attention Division I coaches have lavished upon her and the students who ask Williams for game tickets — not to the Clovis games, but tickets to the college she ends up playing for.

"That's nice to hear, but I still have a long way to go," Williams said. "My greatest challenge is trying to improve my game every year. Right now I have to work on my mid-range game, just knowing when to keep going to the basket or pulling up for a jump shot. I know things will only get harder in the next couple of years, so it makes me want to work that much harder."