Mitchell Christian star leaves mark as best ever in S.D.

	Creighton-bound Jill Young's high scoring South Dakota career came to a close on Feb. 22 with a loss to Alexandria Hanson. Courtesy of Christian Begeman

After setting South Dakota career records for points (3,317) and three-pointers (467) while leading Mitchell Christian to a six-year record of 94-31, senior Jill Young's high school career ended on a sour note on Feb. 22 as the Golden Eagles were upset in the district finals by Alexandria Hanson, 29-24, as Young was held to 15 points.

Though Young's senior year ended with a crushing defeat, she still has the credentials to be considered the greatest female basketball player in South Dakota prep history.

"My main goal was to try to get another [state] title," says Young, who will play for Creighton next season. "My whole career has been really blessed. I'm trying not to let the ending take away from [my career]. I never thought about it [the No. 1 ranking]. It would be an honor to be considered."

During her junior season, Young was named South Dakota Gatorade Player of the Year as she set single-season state records with 766 points and 105 threes. She averaged a career-high 29.4 points, 10 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 3.4 steals while leading the Golden Eagles to a 24-2 record and the Class B state championship. She also shot 93.8 percent from the free-throw line.

Young had her best game in last year's state semifinals. The Golden Eagles trailed by 10 points in the third quarter, but the sharp-shooting guard scored 15 of her 34 points in the fourth-quarter to upset top-ranked Sully Buttes, 47-41. She followed that with 25 points, 10 rebounds and four steals in a 50-32 championship victory over Centerville.

The previous state scoring record was 3,268 by Becky Flynn-Jensen of Wakonda from 1986-91. Flynn-Jensen, who also played varsity for six years, currently is assistant women's basketball coach at the University of South Dakota and was present the night that Young broke her record. Young said the evening was "exciting and a relief at the same time."

Mitchell Christian coach George Erdahl calls Young "the best I've ever seen or been around. Becky Flynn was 5-foot-11 and played more inside. Jill is an outside player. Overall I'd say Jill has got to be the best player ever [in South Dakota]."

Ever since she was big enough to hold a basketball in her hands, Young has displayed a relentless passion for the game. Her father, Tom, is the boys' basketball coach at Mitchell Christian, so she always has had access to a gym, or at least a driveway court.

Erdahl began coaching Young as an eighth grader. She had averaged 18.7 points in seventh grade, but the team's record was only 2-17. "I knew she was special," he says. "We really focused our offense around her, even as an eighth grader. She's a gym rat if I've ever seen one. You can't get her out of the gym. She was sick last year. We had to drag her out of the gym and make her stay home. If she goes more than two days without a ball in her hands, she goes nuts."

Young admits that she rarely ever misses more than five days a year without playing. It paid off for both her and her team. Her scoring average in eighth grade shot up to 29.1 and the team improved dramatically to 14-5. She averaged 25.5 as a freshman, 29.2 as a sophomore, 29.4 as a junior and 29.1 as a senior. Her last three years the Golden Eagles were 63-5.

More notes

• Legendary coach Bob Hurley picked up his 900th victory as St. Anthony (Jersey City, N.J.) crushed St. Aloysius, 102-36. The 59-year-old Hurley, who has lost just 100 games in 36 years, was honored with a proclamation by Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy. Three days later St. Anthony defeated Paterson Catholic, 90-62, to make Hurley the winningest coach in state history.

• California's winningest girls basketball coach, Joe Vaughan, retired last week with a 761-112 record in 32 years at Ventura Buena. The 63-year-old coach won state championships in 1983 and 1984.

• Crawford High senior Tyrone Shelley scored 42 points in his final game to set a San Diego Section career record with 2,962 points. The 6-foot-7 Pepperdine recruit surpassed the record of 2,934 points, which was set one year earlier by La Costa Canyon's Chase Budinger, now a freshman star at Arizona.

• St. Anthony's (South Huntington, N.Y.) senior Walter Henning broke his national indoor 25-pound hammer throw record for the second time this year with a toss of 86 feet, 3.75 inches during the Eastern States Championships at the Armory in Manhattan, N.Y. The North Carolina recruit had set a record of 86-2 in January at the Dartmouth Relays.

• Senior track star Ebony Collins has transferred from Long Beach Wilson to Los Angeles Locke due to conflicts with coach Terry Kennedy. She led Wilson to California's Division I track title last spring and has run two of the top three 300-meter hurdles times in prep history.

• Reno Hug guard Armon Johnson tied Nevada's basketball career scoring record in his final game to finish with 2,616 points. It was believed that the University of Nevada signee had set a record in late January, but then state officials discovered that Prince Fowler of Las Vegas Western had scored 2,616.