Girls’ Basketball: Estancia’s Garnett won’t back down
Slade Garnett describes Spearman, Texas, the town in which she grew up, as “super-small.”
There’s reason for that. Spearman, which sits in Texas’ panhandle, has just more than 3,000 residents. It’s known as “The Windmill Town,” for its collection of vintage windmills.
“There’s one elementary, one middle school, one high school,” Garnett said. “Pep rallies, the whole town came. In the playoffs, the police would lead us out.”
Garnett enjoyed this small-town atmosphere, playing basketball for the “Little Lynxettes” elementary team (the Spearman High mascot is the Lynx) since about 5 years old. She also ran cross country and track, played tennis, swam in the summers, almost any sport you can name.
Change would come. Garnett’s father, Jon, has always worked as a farmer. But in the middle of a bad drought, Slade followed her family from her father’s hometown to her mother’s in the summer of 2013. The family settled in Costa Mesa, where Kelly Garnett (Horgan) played volleyball at Estancia in the early 1980s before continuing on to BYU.
Slade kept playing basketball at Estancia, starting as a junior. She got some advice from Co-Coach Xavier Castellano, who now leads the Eagles’ boys program.
“I was actually really upset about moving,” Slade Garnett said. “It was a big change when I got here, but Coach Xavy was super-helpful and encouraging. He told me to go be a leader.”
That, Garnett could handle. The guard earned first-team All-Orange Coast League and Newport-Mesa Dream Team honors as a junior, despite suffering a torn left hamstring late in the season. She helped Estancia win its second straight Orange Coast League title.
She continued to improve. Last summer, the Eagles’ co-captain was killing the competition in summer league. This was a welcome sight for Castellano and Co-Coach Judd Fryslie.
“I think she was becoming what would have been the best player in league by far,” Fryslie said. “She was probably averaging 15 to 20 points per game, with multiple [three-pointers]. And we were wondering how we would replace [two-time Newport-Mesa Player of the Year] Celia [Duran].”
Then came July 24, 2014. You bet that Garnett still remembers the date. It started off fun, with Garnett visiting Sky High Sports trampoline park in Costa Mesa.
“I’ve jumped on a trampoline my whole life in my back yard, and I’ve been in gymnastics and done crazy stuff,” she said. “I was just jumping, and it felt like the bottom half of my leg, under my knee, just shifted outward. I was like, ‘Whoa, what just happened?’ I knew something had happened, because I had never felt that way before. I got up and I couldn’t walk very well.”
An MRI confirmed that she had torn her right anterior cruciate ligament. She had surgery less than three weeks later. Her senior year of basketball seemed gone. Fryslie, who took over as the sole head coach, was certainly skeptical, even as Garnett went to physical therapy multiple times per week.
“She would spend time with the team in the fall,” Fryslie said. “She would tell us, ‘I’m going to be back in February.’ ACLs, unless you’re a super athlete like Adrian Peterson or something like that, it’s hard. I wasn’t sure if it was realistic.”
Slade stayed determined.
“I told everyone [I would be back],” she said. “My physical therapist was like, ‘You need to slow down, you may not.’ I was always like, ‘No, I’m going to do it.’ But even though my mind was saying that, it was pretty discouraging with my body. At the beginning of the recovery, it was horrible. I was in so much pain.”
She somehow beat even her own timetable, returning to the court Jan. 13. A co-captain along with senior guard Gianna Guyot and senior center Eliza Jason, she has been an integral part down the stretch in league as the Eagles (18-8, 10-0), ranked No. 10 in CIF Southern Section Division 4AA, earned their third straight outright league title.
Slade’s freshman sister Finley, as well as junior point guard Maya Van Den Heever, also are definitely leaders. Finley, a forward, leads the team in scoring, while Van Den Heever is a dynamic player. Slade, who Fryslie called the “Mama Bear” of the team, has certainly been there for her younger sister.
“I feel like the whole time I’m encouraging her,” Slade Garnett said. “Coach Fryslie, [Wednesday] night he sat me down on the bench [during the league finale against Godinez] and he told me what he wanted Finley to know. He was like, ‘She listens to you, she responds to you.’ I just want her to be really good.”
But Slade Garnett, the Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week, also has came up big.
She scored key baskets late to help Estancia survive its closest league game, a 43-40 win over Godinez on Jan. 22. More recently, she had a season-high 16 points and four three-pointers as the Eagles won at Costa Mesa, 52-31, in the second Battle for the Bell game on Feb. 5.
The atmosphere of the rivalry games is something that Garnett loves, being from Texas. So is being the shut-down defender.
“I love defense, it’s my favorite,” she said. “Now, it’s kind of hard. Shooting’s hard, too, because I have to bend my knees and they’re still a little achy. The other knee is like having to compensate and do more, so it starts to hurt. These last couple of games, I think my muscles have realized what I’m doing to them, because I’m earlier than most people are for an ACL recovery. I started playing at five months [after surgery], which I was advised not to do.”
Slade knew that she didn’t want to miss her senior year. The fifth of seven children, she likes staying involved in all aspects of her life. She took four Advanced Placement classes last year at Estancia and is in three more this year, all while maintaining a weighted grade-point average over 4.0. She acts in Estancia’s drama department and participates in several clubs, including the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
On the sports front, she played No. 2 singles for Estancia girls’ tennis as a junior. This spring, she said she might join the Estancia swim team, especially since she’s been told it will be good for her knee.
Slade always manages to stay busy. One thing that she regrets is that she’s missed a lot of the college recruitment process, due to her knee. She still hopes to possibly walk-on at BYU, however.
If there’s one thing she has shown, it would be wise not to doubt her.
“She’s just a good, positive kid,” Castellano said. “Just a great teammate. We’re lucky that she came to our school. She’s feisty and she plays hard. She brings that Texas basketball mentality.”
The “Little Lynxette” is now a roaring Eagle.
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Slade Garnett
Born: Oct. 7, 1996
Hometown: Spearman, Texas
Height: 5-foot-8
Sport: Basketball
Year: Senior
Coach: Judd Fryslie
Favorite food: Spaghetti
Favorite movie: “Singin’ in the Rain”
Favorite athletic moment: Helping Estancia win the CdM Tip-Off Tournament last year.
Week in review: Garnett scored a season-high 16 points to help Estancia win at Costa Mesa, 52-31, in the second Battle for the Bell game on Feb. 5.
