Valley girls basketball team is hungry to be competitive

By: Antonio Rossetti
Sunday, November 24, 2024 | 5:52 PM

Tonya Norman is the new sheriff in town as the coach for Valley girls basketball. Although she is in her first year, she is familiar with Valley sports.

Norman was a three-sport athlete at Valley and went on to play basketball at Duquesne after graduating in 1989. She said connecting with the players hasn’t been difficult as they already know her from coaching other sports such as softball and volleyball.

Last season the Vikings went winless, but this season Norman wants to turn the page.

“I want them to learn a little bit more about the game,” Norman said. “I’m just trying to increase their knowledge, just trying to kind of start from the beginning and resetting. We’re trying to look forward to building from there … we’re trying to focus on the future and leave the past in the past and start fresh from today.”

She said being the coach was a long time coming. Norman says she wants to mentor the players and watch them grow into young adults.

The girls are ready, and Norman wants to keep the lady Vikings focused and ready.

“They have a mutual respect for me,” Norman said. “They trust me. They know what I’m doing. I think I’m a little bit more strict. I don’t do a lot with the excuses and everything. I hold them accountable.”

The players have bought into her coaching.

Valley rosters seven players, four of them seniors.

“I’m excited just to get them playing, and just for them to see their work paying off,” Norman said. “Even the little things, the hustling, the looking up and seeing that transition play and just trying to get them breaking out of their comfort zone and really stepping it up like that.”

One player who will help captain the Vikings is senior power forward Janelle Norman, one of Tonya’s daughters.

Jada Norman is her older sister who plays at Penn State New Kensington. She holds the rebounding record at Valley.

Janelle Norman said her sister and mother got her into basketball.

“I looked up to her (her mother) for a long time,” Janelle Norman said. “She’s definitely got me into basketball. I think that having her as a coach is going to be a lot better this year. I think being able to work with my teammates, because they know my mom, and they know who I am, I think they are more comfortable with her because they know me.”

Norman joked that Janelle had no choice to buy in because she’s her daughter. Nevertheless, she sees Janelle, a 6-foot-2 power forward, stepping up.

“She’s taking more of a leadership role, being a senior, having more experience with AAU,” Coach Norman said. “She’s just showing them what it’s going to take and her leadership and how she sees the floor in the game.”

Janelle Norman is ready to be a leader. She said the Vikings don’t have a ton of experience playing together, but effort won’t be a problem.

“It’s definitely different taking a leadership role with this team, but I think we can all work together and we all can be leaders,” Janelle Norman said. “We can just find that communication and work together to win this season.”

Junior 5-9 guard Ameria Simmons will help lead the charge.

“I’d say Ameria has definitely taken steps in her leadership role,” Coach Norman said.

“She’s a junior, and she’s wanting to shoot more. Defense, just progressing on that and just seeing the floor. Being able to play with a girl like Janelle, a tall girl who can run the floor, who can score, has been helpful.”

Janelle Norman is excited to get on the court with her. She said Simmons is doing well.

“I can definitely see her skills just improving,” Norman said. “Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working together. We just need to have more game situations during practice and have more experience with the games, just so we know what we’re doing and we can play off of each other.”

Coach Norman is looking forward to see Vatoria Tallerico play.

“She’s young, with not a lot of varsity experience, but she is definitely a natural player,” Norman said. “She loves the game.

“She can see the floor. She has a lot of natural skill. She does things that I haven’t even taught her yet. She just picks it up really fast and naturally can do it … she’s not being intimidated by the older girls, and standing on her own and getting her confidence to be a big part of this team.”

Multi-sport seniors DeShae Perkins, Trinity Ingram and Nevaeh Lyle are ready to play. Janelle Norman can’t wait to build chemistry with them.

“Neveah’s always holding down the fort,” Norman said. “She’s always been great overall for the team, always picking people up and giving them the opportunity to get better. Trinity, she just moved back from Louisiana. She’s just doing really well and even better since the last time I played with her in ninth grade. I can tell that the team that we have now, we definitely work well with each other and just do a lot better than we’ve done in previous years.”

Sophomore guard Zainaya Jones returns to the team, rounding out the roster.

Coach Norman has been around the game and knows how important team confidence is. She wants to instill confidence.

“I just want them to know that they can play with anybody,” Norman said. “I don’t care who we play, but once that ball is in the air for that jump ball, we’re all equal.”

With a smaller roster, coach Norman doesn’t plan to press a lot, but she also wants to play tough defense. She said she wants their opponents to play their way.

“If everybody on the team scores, I’m happy,” Norman said. “I want them to run that floor with their heads held high, I want them to say that they came and played their hearts out, and gave it all they had. That’s all I ask: that we leave it on the floor and we hustle, we do what we have to do and we have no regrets.”

She said if the Vikings give it their all, they already won.

Janelle Norman and her teammates are taking it day-by-day.

“We just have to take it one step at a time,” Norman said. “This is my mom’s first year coaching, I’m coming back to a team where we really haven’t played with each other that much, so we just need to work on the little things, try to fix something every game, no matter if it’s a win or loss and just give it our all.”

She wants to bring back winning basketball to Valley.

“We want Valley to be this school that everybody doesn’t look down on but, show everyone we can be a school that can win, and be together, and be a cooperative, better team.”

Valley girls at a glance

Coach: Tonya Norman

Last year’s record: 0-20 (0-12)

Returning starters: DeShae Perkins (Sr., G), Nevaeh Lyle (Sr., F)

Top newcomers: Janelle Norman (Sr., PF), Trinity Ingram (Sr., G)

Tags: Valley