You'd forgive this Immaculate Heart of Mary girl's basketball team if they told you they were suffering from an identity crisis.
First of all, they represent arguably the most unique parish in the parochial league. Where competing churches are nestled into tree-lined neighborhoods, downtown historic districts or pulsing ethnic-rich areas, only IHM hearkens the visitor to childhood visits of country parishes and then to Grandma's for dinner and roughhousing with cousins.
Second, though competing last year in the eighth-grade division, less than half of the girls are actually moving on to high school next year. The rest, a collection of scrappy and athletically mature seventh graders, rounded out the squad.
Even something seemingly as cut and dried as their address isn't so simple. Though officially North Little Rock, the area is still referred to by many locals as Marche, so named by Polish nobleman Count Timothy von Choyeski who bought the land in 1877, soon to attract the Holy Ghost Fathers who built the original chapel.
Yet on a warm spring day, gathered in polite assembly for the press in the music room, these young athletes assumed a collective persona of which they are both comfortable and worthy — winners.
"This whole school is like a big family," said Amanda Strack, an eighth grader and the team's point guard. "In some leagues, nobody really knows anybody else. Here we know what we can do and what each other can do."
What they do, and have done for six seasons in a row, is dominate the field. Strack and fellow eighth graders Rebecca Niedzwiedz and Katie Kita began in the West Pulaski County League where their third- and fourth-grade team won back to back regular season league titles, took the post-season tourney once and was runner-up as fourth graders.
Their run in the Little Rock Parochial League, however, was almost over before it even started. In a class of 18 and just seven girls, numbers were scarce and three then-fourth graders were enticed to play up a year just to field a team.
"We're proud of how the younger girls stepped up to the plate," Niedzwiedz said. "Without them, we wouldn't have had a team."
The younger players, Megan Parker, Kaitlyn Hiatt and Regan Moore, didn't just fill roster spots; they had an immediate impact on the team's fortunes. In the fifth-grade division, the Blue Angels won the regular season title and took second in the league tourney. The following year, they ran the table, finishing 13-0 with regular season and post-season titles in hand. It was an accomplishment that solidified the little parish's patchwork squad as one not to overlook.
"After that sixth grade season, teams started getting better and they were all coming after us," Kita said.
The team added former home schooler Eva Short who played up for the last two years in the parochial league. By IHM standards, the seventh-grade division was a letdown, though many teams would gladly finish second in both regular season play and the post-season tourney with just two losses overall. In their final campaign, the squad took yet another regular season title and second in the eighth-grade division of the post-season tournament.
Asked what stands out from so many consecutive years of competing together, the team lists memorable plays — like when Strack hit a half court heave right before halftime in one game and winning a quadruple overtime thriller against Christ the King, the Blue Angels' perennial nemesis.
There are other memories, too, of drama and tears and the growing pains of adolescent girls having to get along over a prolonged period of time. More than once, bickering teammates whistled hard passes at each other during drills in practice and the trash talk flowed. Asked how the team kept its focus through such times Niedzwiedz shrugged.
"We grew up," she said.
The most treasured things are appreciated largely by them alone, which is how it goes when you're part of something exclusive. Unless you ran the steeplechase conditioning drills singing the songs the team dreamed up or heard Coach Paul Strack's many different voices, unless you knew which member had to chew gum on game day and which one had to have her Subway sandwich — in short, unless you were there — you can't appreciate what each player takes with her as this team melts into IHM lore.
"I think they will remember the friendships first," Coach Strack said. "I don't think they will remember individual games. It's the memories of the times they shared together that will stick with them."
As for Coach Strack and Coach Leon Niedzwiedz, the wins were icing to getting to spend so much time with their daughters in what can be some of the most trying phases of that relationship. Both men shake their heads at the memory of when team cattiness reached its peak — ironically, throughout the undefeated season. While never wanting to repeat that era, in hindsight, it was all part of a remarkable ride.
"There is no greater joy than coaching your kids," Coach Strack said. "Sometimes there's no greater disservice either because you're tougher on your own. Having said that, I'd never trade this experience."
The three eighth graders are bound for Mount St. Mary Academy in Little Rock where they all plan to go out for sports, basketball included. As for the seventh graders, there's one more parochial title to chase next year.
Interview over, the team poses for a few snapshots and then drift off to track practice, passing by the trophy case they helped stock just outside the darkened school gym.
"I really liked the games and all the people coming out to cheer for us," Kita said. "Especially the home games. Our families got loud."
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