Lead, dominate, repeat

Ask Haywood Wright what her personal goals were before her senior season at Sage Hill and she will talk to you about the desire to win more basketball games than the previous year.

Ask Wright about which games she remembers from her final season and she will speak of wins over JSerra, not her quadruple double against Anza Hamilton in which she scored a season-high 33 points.

Ask her about how she was able to lead the Academy League in steals and she’ll point to teammates and the pressure defense Coach Jim Perez had the team run.

“With our pressure, our guards would just funnel it in to me and force bad passes,” said Wright, the Daily Pilot Newport-Mesa Player of the Year. “I didn’t do that much. It was great.”

What Wright, who won the award last year, did was average 13 points, 11.9 rebounds, 4.6 steals and 4.8 blocks a game.

“She was never a player to be content with her abilities and stop practicing,” Perez said. “She stayed after every practice. Her work ethic was unparalleled. She was the epitome of a team player. She was more worried about the team then she was individual accomplishments.”

Prior to the season, the Lightning sat down and discussed team goals. Everybody agreed that on top of the list was to win a league title. Wright disagreed.

“I wanted to go undefeated,” said Wright, who will attend Yale next year. “We won league last year in a tie. It wasn’t satisfying. This year, we wanted to win it outright.”

So Sage Hill went 10-0 in league and advanced to the CIF Southern Section Division IV-A semifinals with a 15-game win streak.

“She was always first to practice,” Perez said. “She was always encouraging them. After practice, she would work with the team. She could have taken her senior year and kicked back. She always pushed the team to higher goals.”

Wright was the only Newport-Mesa girls’ basketball player to be named first team All-CIF in their division. She was also the Academy League’s most valuable player.

The five other members of the Dream Team: