2000/2001 Game Results Last Updated: August 10, 2000

August 10, 2000  

Parr's poise, power prized

North senior stars in Jr. Olympic run

By Steve Beaudry
Leader-Telegram staff

Parr

Larissa Parr strikes a familiar pose whenever a basketball game starts to crumble around her.

She slouches her 5-foot-11 frame, pins her right hand to her hip like someone impatiently waiting in a checkout line and peers at the nearest official.

"How could you call that on me?" Parr's incredulous look seems to ask.

Parr's exasperated stance didn't show up often last week. The senior-to-be at Eau Claire North steered clear of foul trouble -- her peskiest nemesis as a high school basketball player.

And, as a direct result, Parr played a leading role in Wisconsin's unprecedented performance at the AAU National Junior Olympics girls basketball tournament in Orlando, Fla.

Parr helped propel the 12-member Wisconsin Viking Club Velocity White team to a 7-2 record and a third-place finish in the event, which had 26 teams from across the country advance to its championship bracket.

The other Wisconsin-based team entered, the 10-member Viking Club Velocity Red, with Colfax junior-to-be Tess Fanning as one of its guards, placed second behind a Texas team.

Until this year the best showing for Wisconsin -- which has sent at least one team to the Junior Olympics for the past seven years -- was fourth place in 1996, according to Wisconsin AAU president Keith Noll.

"I was just reading an e-mail from Eddie Clinton," Noll said Tuesday, referring to the head of AAU girls basketball at the organization's national office in Orlando, "and he says Wisconsin has a lot to be proud of.

"He says the best games at the Junior Olympics this year were the two that had (the Wisconsin teams) playing each other. We went down there and really put on a show."

Especially Parr, who was Wisconsin White's top scorer in five of its nine games. She averaged 10.7 points per game, ranking her second on the team behind forward Janel McCarville of Stevens Point.

"Our scoring was pretty balanced. But Larissa, with her scoring and rebounding, was unstoppable in most of the games," Wisconsin White coach Chuck Morning said. "I was talking to some college coaches down there, and they said Larissa's stock really soared in their eyes.

"She went against some top-notch competition and held her own. She was one of the better post players down there."

"Yeah, OK, whatever. Maybe," Parr said humbly when informed of Morning's glowing assessment, "when I stayed out of foul trouble. …

"I didn't foul out of any games down there, which was nice for a change. But I've still got to work on that."

That's Parr's perfectionist trait shining through. Again.

Ask her about her performance in the Junior Olympics, and she won't be quick to mention the two games she scored 17 points. She'll first note the game she fell victim to foul trouble.

It's the same when you bring up her scintillating 1999-2000 season, in which Parr helped lead North to a 17-5 record.

She averaged 13.0 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. Her 2-to-1 steals-to-turnovers ratio easily paced the team. She garnered the second-most votes in the Big Rivers' all-conference meeting. She regularly dominated the paint like Rembrandt squaring off against a graffiti artist ...

"But I was in foul trouble more than I should've been," said Parr, whose 74 fouls were the most among the Huskies.

"I don't want to say anything about the refs," she said after one of her foul-infested games, "because I don't want to give them reason to target me."

Parr made it her goal -- her mission -- this summer to (1) improve her ball-handling skill and (2) lessen her propensity for collecting fouls.

"If I play in college, I'm not going to be one of the taller players," she said, "so I've got to handle the ball better. And I've got to do better at not reaching on defense, keeping my feet planted -- basic stuff. You know, trying to be intense without fouling. It's a challenge."

According to Angie Ott, one of her Wisconsin White teammates, Parr's efforts were noticeable last week.

"Larissa did great," said Ott, a senior-to-be at Chippewa Falls who averaged 10.3 points per game at the Junior Olympics. "As a team we pushed the ball well. Our posts did a good job keeping up the tempo."

Wisconsin White kept up its fast pace during a break in the tournament as well.

"We won our pool, and we got a bye in the championship round," Ott said, "so Coach let us go to the Magic Kingdom."

Said Parr: "I'd been to Disney World on vacation once before, but a bunch of the rides were being fixed at the time, so we couldn't go on them.

"This time we got to go on Space Mountain and Splash Mountain and a lot of other ones. It was awesome."

Likewise, Parr said, was her basketball-stuffed summer.

"It was so much fun -- a great experience," she said. "I got to know a lot of neat people that I've played against, like Angie and Jackie (Dummer of Menomonie).

"It was hectic and challenging, going against awesome players all the time. But it's like when you've got a job that you're totally into. I mean, it's a job, but you really like doing it, you know?

"I guess that's sort of what the summer was like for me."

Beaudry can be reached evenings at 833-9212 or (800) 236-7077 or at steve.beaudry@ecpc.com.