Making up for lost time, this shooting star averaged an amazing triple-double during her senior year.

You couldn't ask for a better season from a senior--especially one who spent the last year rehabbing an ACL tear. This basketball season, Catherria Turner, a 5-6 senior at Amphitheatre High School in Tucson, Ariz., averaged a remarkable 29 points, 11 rebounds, 10 steals this season, while also racking 4.5 assists per game.

Yet last fall, most high school hoops prognosticators--and college recruiters--left her off their preseason lists of outstanding prospects. That's because she tore up her knee in a 1999 preseason game, and missed her entire junior season. "I don't think it was they didn't know about me, I think they just kind of forgot," she says of the recruiters, who had been knocking on her door before her injury. "Even the Arizona colleges stopped writing me after I got hurt. But I tried not to let it upset me. The Lord does everything for a reason."

After several months of rehab, Turner returned to the court for summer AAU ball, where she was spotted by the coaches from the University of Oregon at a tournament in San Diego. "I was wearing a knee brace, which broke, and the coaches picked up a part and returned it to my coach," she remembers. "We didn't pay much attention at the time, but after the game we got a phone call and the coaches wanted to know when I was practicing. They came to one of my practices and after that, told me that they wanted me to come up there for a visit. I went, and I fell in love with the place. So I decided it would probably be the best place for me to go."

For the rest of summer club play, Catherria limited her aggressive drives to the hoop to protect her healing knee. By the fall, however, she had healed and was poised for a breakthrough senior season. This was particularly important for her young Amphitheatre team.

"This year, she led our team, which had no one else with varsity experience," says Amphitheatre Head Coach Doc Robertson. "Her strengths on the court include her leadership and ability to involve everyone into the game. She could tell when the pressure became overwhelming for them and took over when she had to. This was evident in our game against Sabino High when she scored 47 points. Having her was like having a coach on the floor."

After leading the state in scoring and steals this season, she ended up being named first team All-State and Player of the Year by three Arizona newspapers. "I don't want to sound like an overzealous dad, but I am very proud of the work that she did to return to form," says her father, Steve Turner, who also coaches her club team, the Tucson Miracles. "She had a pretty good year and through it all remained humble and a team player."

Robertson concurs, noting that Catherria served as a role model to her teammates and younger players. "Her demeanor on the floor and off always provided an positive example for her teammates to follow," Robertson says. "When we had middle school girls visit our team, she made sure they felt welcomed and also signed autographs for them."

After running track this spring--she competes in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay, long jump and high jump--and playing summer club ball for the Miracles, Turner will head to Oregon, for which she plans to sign a letter of intent on April 11.

Off the court, Turner has high academic goals to shoot for. "I would like to be a child psychologist," she says. "My dad has always coached club ball for free and when we were little girls, I remember the parents asking how they could repay him for coaching their kids. He said, 'Call me in 20 years and tell me that they're helping out the community or helping out kids in some way.' So I always remembered that, and by becoming a child psychologist, I can help out kids. It would be my way of saying, ŒHere you are, dad--here's what I'm doing to help kids 20 years from now.'"

Article written by Gball Associate Editor Jim Catalano.

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