By Dale Miller
dale.miller@theindependent.com

The Grand Island Central Catholic post started out as a freshman with plenty of height and plenty of potential.

She finished as a well-rounded 6-foot-1 player who could be both the second-leading scorer in school history as well as the school leader in steals.

For her performance while leading the Crusaders to an 18-8 season and an appearance in the Class C-2 State Tournament, Statler has been named The Independent's All-Heartland Super Squad Honorary Captain.

She is joined on the Super Squad by Cross County's Megan Allison, GICC's Tali Fredrickson, St. Paul's Ashley Hall and North Loup-Scotia's Kelli Hermsmeyer.

GICC coach Andy Anspauch feels that Statler is where she is at because of her hard work. She didn't settle for just playing at a level that her natural talents allowed her.

"I'm very proud of the way she's progressed as a complete basketball player," Anspauch said. "She's been a good basketball player for four years but she's improved and developed a complete game.

"She's improved a lot in non-scoring areas. She's a good ballhandler for her size. She's a good player defensively. She'll be our career steal leader. That says a lot about her anticipating skills to be a player her size (and set that record)."

Statler focused on improving each offseason.

"During the summer (last year), I worked a lot on ballhandling drills," she said.

That showed as she could bring the ball up the court in a pinch. She also continued to expand her scoring range.

That allowed her to average 18.04 points per game to go along with her 11.08 rebounds. She joined KC Cowgill as the only two Crusaders to score more than 1,000 points in her career.

"Reaching 1,000 points was a big highlight," Statler said. "I had no idea I was that close."

Becoming a scoring threat from further away from the basket enable Statler to reach that milestone in January.

"She's more than just a threat two feet from the basket," Anspauch said. "As a freshman and sophomore, she was dominant up to five feet. As a junior, it was 15 feet. Now she's comfortable up to the 3-point line. That makes it difficult to cover her."

While not the most vocal player, Statler does have the ability to motivate her teammates.

"Sometimes she's misunderstood because she's not a vocal person," Anspauch said. "People see her play and thought she should say more. She did her talking on the court.

"But there's times she'd give the look and you knew she meant business. She didn't try to be something she wasn't."

With all of her success, Anspauch admitted it wasn't easy not to expect even more from Statler.

"Sometimes I'd catch myself as a coach," he said. "She'd have 18 points, 12 rebounds, five blocks and six steals. That's a great stat line for any player at any level.

"But at times I'd say 'yeah, she had 18 points and 12 rebounds, but why didn't she have 25 points and 18 rebounds?' Those are not realistic expectations.

"I'd ask her why she didn't do better and she'd just smile at me and say 'I'll be better next game.' And she always was."

Statler admits that the expectations were tough on her at times.

"Sometimes it's hard," she said. "But you just don't get down on yourself. You just think that you'll come back and do better next game."

Statler leaves plenty of highlights from her career at Central Catholic. There were the nights she was unstoppable in the lane from the opening tip-off.

There was the impressive blocked 3-pointer at the state tournament where she covered a lot of ground coming out of the lane to swat the trey attempt nearly back to mid-court.

Even though her high school career ended a few wins earlier than she wanted to, Statler has no complaints.

"I was really happy with the season," she said. "I didn't start off playing as good as I wanted to, but I was by the end of the year. I'm happy with what we achieved."