Pye, Terrell garner top honors

St. Anne’s-Belfield’s Taysha Pye has been trying to prove she belonged ever since she stepped on the court. In New York, she was too young for her team, a 13-year-old playing on a team dominated by 16-year-olds.

“She was the most focused kid on the floor,” said St. Anne’s coach Phil Stinnie, who first saw Pye when she suited up for that travel team. “She was just determined to show that she belonged.”

Nothing changed when she came to Virginia, where, like anywhere else, an outsider has to prove their worth.

Pye has done that and more for the last three years, transforming from a post player to one of the state’s most potent guards and a future member of William and Mary’s backcourt.

That determination is a big reason that Pye is 2008’s All-Central Virginia Player of the Year.

For Pye, the numbers say a lot. She averaged 27.3 points (up from just over 20 points as a junior), 11.2 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 4.6 steal per game. Pye piled up more than 1,500 points in her three-year career at St. Anne’s after arriving as a sophomore.

Pye, a first-team All-State selection, also led the Saints to the state semifinals where St. Anne’s fell by seven points to Norfolk Collegiate. In that game, Pye went toe-to-toe with North Carolina-bound She’la White.

“We had really come together as a team, our team chemistry was as high as it could have been,” Pye said. “Of course it didn’t finish how we wanted it to, but we played hard.”

Her huge numbers aren’t the only place Pye made an impact. The senior adjusted her game after St. Anne’s lost a number of post players to graduation.

“I had to be a more versatile player,” Pye said. “I couldn’t just get back on defense, I had to crash the boards, because we had to have those rebounds.”

And as the year went on, Pye began to command the respect of her teammates as a vocal leader.

“At first I wasn’t really vocal but as the season started getting to that climactic stage I started stepping up and saying stuff,” Pye said. “They were really receptive to what I had to say.”

She’s also one of a number of triumphs for the New Heights basketball program in New York that has made a major impact in inner city high school basketball players’ lives for a number of years. Pye was one of the first female players that New Heights helped arrange a place to attend school far away from New York City.

It wasn’t easy for her at first, but now, she’s found her niche in Virginia — she’s certainly comfortable enough to head for William and Mary, where she’ll likely major in business.

“When I first got here I was kind of skeptical,” Pye said. “But as I stayed around I got the hang of it and the people are nice. Everybody was just great.”

Pye will start at William and Mary in a summer program after this year wraps up at St. Anne’s-Belfield.

If her past is any indication, it won’t take long for Pye to start proving she belongs with the Tribe.