Prepping for a future in hoops
Niagara Prep head coach Dave Picton walks the sidelines during a recent game.
Julia Colavecchia has made name for herself as one of the most promising high school girls basketball players in Niagara.
The 16-year-old Niagara Falls native is driven by the goal of landing a NCAA Division 1 scholarship. To get there, she is part of the Niagara Prep Ontario Scholastic Basketball Association team based out of A.N. Myer Secondary School in Niagara Falls.
“It’s my love for the game,” she said, of her lofty goal. “I always want to be playing, getting better and keep accomplishing what I am doing.”
She feels the Niagara Prep program is where she needs to be to succeed and recommends it to other like-minded athletes.
“It’s going to be rough at the beginning —it’s rough for everyone — but you have to keep pushing through it and have a good frame of mind for the whole thing,” she said. “And look into the future and know that something good always comes out of hard work.”
A typical day for Niagara Prep players begins with a weight training session at A.N. Myer from 7:15 to 8 a.m.
After the school day ends, the team is picked up and delivered to Gate Alliance Church, the former site of Saint Michael Catholic High School, for practice from 3:30 until 5:30 p.m. Following practice, there’s time for homework and some relaxation.
“It’s not so bad because we have recovery times built in which gives me the energy to do my school work afterwards,” Colavecchia said.
The one area she struggles a bit with is the sense that she is always going full speed.
“You get tired and sore,” the Grade 11 student said. “I get sore a lot, but you have to push through it. It helps having my teammates because we are all going through the same thing. Us knowing we are all here for each other is perfect.”
The six footer realized early on it wasn’t going to be easy.
“I prepared myself mentally for it because I knew it was going to be a lot, a big step and a big change,” she said. “I knew what I was getting myself into and I wanted to get better.”
The former Niagara Ranger, Niagara JUEL and JUEL Prep player believes she has already made some great strides in her game this season.
“I feel like I am more of an attacker and I feel my game has improved a tremendous amount offensively and defensively,” she said. “I have to keep working on my defence and communication on the court because communication is a big stepping stone for me.
“In university, it’s all communication and if you don’t communicate, you don’t play.”
The most highly-touted member of Niagara Prep is 18-year-old Montreal native Sarah Te-Biasu. The 5-foot-5 guard was a member of Canada’s under-17 national team.
She played against Picton’s team in Montreal and became interested in coming to Niagara.
“I really like it because it is a new system and a new environment,” she said.
She was a bit surprised with the intensity of the workload, including the 7 a..m. workouts.
“The lifting is really hard but I like it.”
Te-Biasu has already been in discussions with Louisville, St. John, Delaware, Mississippi State and Michigan. She hasn’t done any official visits yet and isn’t leaning towards any particular school.
Meanwhile, she keeps honing her craft.
“I’m trying to work on being a leader on the court and a better passer and scorer.”
For her, the hardest part of the program isn’t on the court.
“It is speaking English,” she said. “It is my second language and it’s really tough because sometimes they don’t understand me and I have to translate.”
Playing American tournaments has been her most enjoyable part of the experience.
“It’s really nice because we learn another culture and style of play,” she said.
Niagara sits in first place in the OSBA Women’s West with a record of 9-2.
“It has been fantastic and a learning experience,” head coach and founder Dave Picton said. “It’s really high-level stuff that we’re doing and it’s very demanding.
“We’re first place in our division, we’re first year in, we have a solid winning record, we have done very well when we’ve travelled to the U.S. and we’ve had kids at national assessment camps and Canada Basketball is very happy with their progression.”
Picton has no plans to judge the success of the program based on wins or losses or how many athletes move on to play post-secondary basketball. His goal at the end of each season at whatever level he has coached is to have the players and their parents agree the athlete has improved.
“If that answer is yes, then we are doing what we are trying to accomplish,” Picton said. “The result component of it — the wins, the scholarships, the next level playing or whatever it might be — that will be the result of the success they are having individually in their development.”
Three of the 12 players who started the year in the OSBA program have left and Picton, while disappointed, understands the program isn’t for everyone.
“This is demanding,” he said. “It is 7 a.m. every morning with these girls. They are doing lifting or skills workouts, they are doing school and then we are practising every day after school.
“We are running a university-style program and there’s up and downs and learning,” he said. “You have to figure out who fits this type of program. It’s intense.”
One of the biggest areas of contention when the program was announced for A.N. Myer was the concern that the students attending the high school would see a shortage of gym time as a result of the OSBA program.
“That was a big thing and there were a number of other things,” Picton said. “Everything we outlined in that presentation has been true to form. We have not pulled one school team out of gym time other then when we put up a schedule of our games because the principal wanted the games here.
“Managing our game days, which is eight games, is the only gym time we asked for as far as time goes. The time was told to us by the school and we didn’t give them times.”
Gate Alliance Church has been a perfect fit for the program.
“We have a practice facility and we have dumped in over $20,000 into that facility with a new floor and we have put up four glass backboards,” Picton said. “Who’s benefitting from that? We are, however, Niagara Falls Red Raiders uses that gym every night for their house league program. Indirectly, Niagara Prep is doing good things for the surrounding basketball community and that’s only great for basketball.”
Gate Alliance Church has also been great in another way.
“It was more beneficial for us to do that than to have to jockey around school schedules and get a 7 o’clock practice or a 2 o’clock practice.”
Niagara Prep does use the gym at Myer somedays at 7 a.m. if it is available for skill development and also used the gym over the holidays
“It’s nice to get it once in a while so that kids can shoot on their game rims,” Picton said.
Very little has surprised him in the program’s first year.
“I don’t think anything has caught me by surprise other than kids who maybe you think would be great in this situation weren’t. I didn’t anticipate any kid not being able to do this out of the ones that were here.”
That experience will hep Picton moving forward.
“It has taught me there are different mindsets and that kids are different and maybe we have to recruit a little bit and identify the kids who this is really for.”
There are presently 12 players in Niagara’s OSBA junior program and some of those players will be coming to Myer next year. This year, Picton also launched Welland JUEL and Welland JUEL prep teams.
“It’s just opening the doors to more kids playing basketball and getting the development,” he said. “It’s not necessarily a feeder system. It’s a place for them to play and more opportunities for kids to play.”
Picton stresses the OSBA program is inclusive and open to everyone.
“We had kids in over the holidays from all over the place asking about our program and coming to check it out.
“Now with our success, people are calling us.”
He invites all Niagara athletes to check out the program.
‘We would look at it, bring them in, see if it’s a fit and then give them an honest opinion of where we would think they would fit.”
The price for the program this school year was $6,500, which included travel, transportation and meals on the road. The budget was made up $6,500 from each of the 12 players that started the season.
“The parents have not been asked for one more cent and anything over and above comes from my pocket personally,” Picton said.
Next home game for Niagara Prep is Wednesday, Feb. 6 at 5:30 p.m. at A.N. Myer versus Lincoln Prep.
