Announcement
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This latest accolade puts Jones up in the pantheon of great Florida players who have adorned themselves with championship bling. Tiffany Hayes and Krystal Thomas are the only other players from Florida with POY, a national championship and at least two state championship rings. Jones will also certainly earn her second Seminole County Player of the Year award as well as first team All-Florida honors. Ashley will attend Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi on a full basketball scholarship. She is one of three Central Florida players who recently signed with SEC schools. Ashley played for the Comets Red team in 2007. She was a part of that formidably deep second team that included Brooke Thomas, Andrea and Andrell Smith and Kelsey Assarian. Yeh, THAT team. It's incredible that they ever lost a game. Last year, as she was primed to start for the Red team and lead them, she abruptly decided to leave the team to play for the Flight. It was a disappointing decision for the team, but probably was the only way for Ashley to win a national championship. The Comets supported her and followed he progress thru the brackets in Augusta last summer. This year Ashley sat out the first three games of the high school season with an illness. Lake Howell lost two of those three games. After Ashley returned to the lineup they never lost another. Jones revved up Lake Howell's fast break with her deadeye three-point shooting and her fierce drives to the hole. The Silver Hawks steamrolled all comers, exacting revenge against teams that had formerly haunted them. They crushed Lake Mary and Winter Haven on the way to the school's first ever girls basketball state championship. Jones will now rest up and prepare for the SEC wars to come. Congratulations, Ashley!!!!
(What's been left unsaid here? How is it that Florida's Gatorade Player of the Year was not voted onto the McDonald's All-America team? Instead, that honor went to Erica Wheeler of Parkway. Ashley's situation is like being named league MVP but not being named to the All-Star game. Hoopgurlz writer Glenn Nelson recently resigned from the McDonald's All-American nominating committee in protest of allegations of vote stuffing and block voting. Many in Florida (including myself) questioned how Bianca Lutley was left off the McDonald's team. Bianca had been generally accorded acclaim as the best 2009 player in Florida. And now this latest voting incident? I'm not saying Ashley doesn't deserve it. After watching Lake Howell play, I clearly think she led the best team in the state and was the best player on the best team in the state. But to be left off the McD's team? Things that make you go "HMMMMMMMM".) |
(KB - 03/15/09) Former Comets guard Ashley Jones has been named Florida's Gatorade Player of the Year. The Lake Howell sharpshooter capped off a sterling season two weeks ago by leading her team to the FHSAA 5A championship over the Nova Titans. Prior to that, Jones won the Nike Nationals championship with the Tennessee Flight. She has not played in a losing basketball game since late last summer.
