Richelle Daily adds to Cardinals’ hoops hopes

As long as she can remember, Richelle Daily has wanted to be a basketball player.

“I’ve been playing basketball basically my whole life,” said Daily. “I’ve grown up around it since I was little.

“My dad coached my team, and I watched basketball games with him and my sister and watched my sister play.”

The Medical Lake junior post player has shown that practice makes perfect, as she helped the Cardinals out to a 5-0 start this season.

“We’ve built the team on a lot of different avenues, different players, but she is definitely a very, very strong factor in our schematic of our offense and defense, that’s for sure,” said first-year head coach Val VonLehe.

VonLehe returned to Medical Lake after a 12-year hiatus this season but was very familiar with the talent she was inheriting in Daily.

“She’s played on varsity since she was a freshman,” VonLehe said. “As soon as I got the job, we had open gym, and I’ve watched her play.

“I knew she had the potential to play. She’s stepping up and playing a very good role for us.

“We’ve wanted her to not just play the post position; I want her to play a total game.”

Part of that has been taking Daily out of her familiar territory in the paint and moving her outside.

“This year she’s only a junior, and I’m trying to get her a little more depth in her play,” VonLehe said. “She’s played down low, and I’m trying to get her to move out a little bit in her play, so if she wants to play college ball, then she’ll have the outside game as well.”

“It’s going pretty good,” Daily said. “I’ve been taking it in and getting fouls called, so I get to go to the free-throw line.

“It wasn’t too hard of an adjustment to my game. It’s OK. I’m getting used to it now, and I like the new part to my game. I hope it gets better.”

The results have paid off on the court for Daily, as she is averaging more than 15 points and 11 rebounds a contest for the Cardinals while shooting 47 percent from the field.

“Her parents are very strong, and they’ve given her a lot of opportunities,” said VonLehe. “She had a lot of good coaching when she was younger.

“She’s been around the game for a long time. She’s watched the game.

“She’s developed a lot of fundamental skills from her prior coaches, and that’s helped a lot.”

While her father, Rick, was a large part of her basketball education in elementary school, it was Daily’s older sister, Amanda, who provided the inspiration to play basketball one day for Medical Lake.

“I watched my sister a lot,” said Daily. “Growing up, I was always like, ‘Oh, I want to be like my sister and play like her.’

“She would always take the ball in hard, and she would never give up. She played with all of her heart.

“She was just a great player and fun to watch. After every game she has some comments, good things and stuff.”

If the Cardinals hope to make a push for the state tournament in March, the play of the 5-foot, 10-inch Daily may go a long way toward determining Medical Lake’s fate.

“When another team scouts her, she is definitely the one they key in on,” VonLehe said. “They’re going to try to stop her, and she knows that.

“Right now she knows when she’s double-teamed, when to kick it back outside. She knows a lot of her points are through her own hustle, to get a rebound and through put backs.

“She creates a lot of moves and a lot of space by her own moves. She creates a lot of moves on her own because they are unique.”

“At the beginning of the season, we were all coming out and trying our hardest for our new coach,” said Daily, who hopes to play college basketball after graduating next season. “We have some people injured, but we keep working and giving it our all.

“We’re going to show everybody Medical Lake isn’t how they think we are. I think we’re good enough to go to state.

“We’re up there with the great teams in the state, where we think we have a chance to go and play with them and beat them.”