By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
When she was a young girl, Brianna Adler took her own basketball to Highlands High School games so she could take a few shots at halftime until someone would ask her to leave the court.
Her dream was to become a high-scoring player like Jaime Walz-Richey, who set a state record by netting 4,948 points during her career at Highlands and led the Bluebirds to the state tournament three consecutive years.
Adler is now playing for Richey, who is head coach at Highlands, and they shared a special moment a couple weeks ago when the junior forward scored the 1,000th point of her career.
“I have to say I owe it to Jaime,” Adler said of reaching that milestone. “Ever since I was young I told her I was going to beat her record just joking around with her. Obviously, I can’t get 5,000 points, but 1,000 is pretty good. And now I have even higher goals, so I’m going to say I owe it all to her.”
Adler’s next goal is to help Highlands win its first 9th Region championship with Richey as head coach. Two years ago, the Bluebirds lost in the regional final and last year’s team was knocked off in the semifinals. This year’s team is ranked third in the region after losing close games to No. 1 Holy Cross and No. 2 Holmes.
“Clearly, we’re the best three teams and we’re all pretty much the same,” Adler said. “But a lot of teams in the region have talent. It’s all a matter of who comes and plays and who doesn’t (in the playoffs).”
Highlands has a 20-3 record going into games against Beechwood on Friday and Dixie Heights on Saturday. This is the third consecutive season that the Bluebirds have won 20 or more games and Adler has been in the starting lineup on each of those teams.
This season, she’s averaging a team-high 11.1 points with most of her scoring coming from 3-point goals. She’s shooting 45.6 percent (47 of 103) from behind the arc to account for 141 of her 256 total points.
“You give her some room and she can stroke it,” coach Richey said. “She knows when she is open we want her to shoot the ball. She’s not a player that is going to force shots and if she isn’t feeling the hot hand she will make the extra pass to her teammates for a better shot. She is such a great shooter that teams have to defend her and that allows other teammates to be open.”
Adler made five treys in the game against Holy Cross that the Bluebirds lost in double overtime. In the game against Holmes, she was being so closely guarded during the first half that her only field goal came on a fast break layup. In the third quarter, however, she swished four 3-point shots to help her team open up a 13-point lead, but Holmes rallied for the victory.
“We are so balanced (on offense) that teams have a hard time matching up with us,” Richey said. “(Adler) is such a great 3-point shooter that she makes teams pay for it when they do leave her open.
Adler said her family moved to Ft. Thomas when she was in the third grade. She has two older sisters who played basketball at Highlands before she started her varsity career as a seventh-grader. She moved into the starting lineup as a freshman and averaged 9.3 and 10.4 points per game the last two seasons. She surpassed the 1,000 mark in career scoring in a win over St. Henry on Jan. 27. Her career total now stands at 1,044.
In her first three varsity seasons combined, Adler made 33.4 percent (108 of 323) of her 3-point attempts. She’s hitting 45.6 percent this season because she’s bigger, stronger and learned to release the ball much quicker.
“I definitely had to work on that,” she said. “ When I was younger I didn’t get it off very quickly and I’d always get yelled at for not getting my shot off. So I tried to work really hard at getting a quicker shot to get those points.”
Adler often comes to the gym on her own to work on her shooting, but Richey no longer tries to match shots with her player.
“I did the other day in practice and I got mad,” Richey said with a smile.
Terry Boehmker, NKyTribune sports writer, is former sportswriter and editor for The Kentucky Post. He is an award-winning writer with extensive background in both print and digital. Reach him at terryboe@yahoo.com.