January 18, 2006

     NOTE: Mallorie Michalak just completed her 6th season playing with the CT Starters; Amanda Pelcher (16 Red) will be starting her 4th season with the Starters and coach Tom Johnson was a former 10-year coach with the Starters.

     MERIDEN - Word is, you don't want to ride on the Platt girls basketball team bus. The needling is merciless, and that's just the start of it.
     "In the words of Johnny Damon, we're just a bunch of idiots," says junior Erica Priebe.
     Actually, junior Lauren Amarante is pretty well read. All the Panthers say she's the smartest one on the team. Yet don't think for a minute they'll let her forget about the time coach Tom Johnson diagramed a play and Amarante asked, "Where's the basket?â"
     At the center of the whirlwind is senior Mallorie Michalak, the pint-sized point guard who packs a big punch, ballhandles, passes and cracks wise with equal alacrity.
     At the head is Johnson, the veteran coach long nicknamed "T.J." and recently dubbed "T-Dog" by this 2005-06 edition. He sits up front with a flashlight mounted on his head (which might be a little sore from the noogie Michalak gave him during a timeout) and adds up the scorebook so he can call the newspaper on the ride home.
     Michalak starts in.
     "T-Dog, how much do you love us?"
     "Oh yeah, right there at the top of my list."
     "Honestly, what's your favorite team that you ever coached?"
     "Let's see, which team gave me the least hassle?"
     "Come on, admit it, we grow on you."
     "Like moss, like lichen, like a tack on my chair."
     Like a tack: Pinch the Panthers, they're 9-1.
     The last time Platt girls basketball hit the halfway point at 9-1 under Johnson was in 1988-89. That was the year the Panthers won their only state championship, 55-47 over Notre Dame-Fairfield in Class L.
     There are parallels between that team and this one. While the current cast wasn't as senior-laden as '89, it has played together for several seasons. Both featured the program's most prolific scorers of all-time: in '89 the Penwell sisters, Kelly (1,472 points) and Kim (1,419), in '06 Michalak (1,061).
     "We're still running some of the same plays we did back then," Johnson adds.
     There are differences. It remains to be seen how deep into March this team goes. And yet it has already gone where the '89 squad never did. It beat Southington. The 49-45 upset Platt pinned on the previously unbeaten Blue Knights last Tuesday was the program's first win in Southington since the late 70s.
     That game illuminated Panther strengths. With Michalak, a fourth-year standout heading to Dowling College, handling the ball, full-court defenses like the one Southington employs so well can be beaten.
     Against Southington, Platt got double figures from Michalak and junior guard Amanda Pelcher. That's the norm. Michalak is the area's leading scorer (21.5 ppg) and Pelcher is averaging 15.8. They've combined for 43 3-pointers.
     Defensively, the Panthers are getting great mileage out of the multi-sport athleticism of Priebe and Amarante, the forwards. Sophomore center Janee Lennox also has made big strides in her second year as a varsity starter.
     And, please, no zones.
     "We tried to play zone early against Southington and we just realized we're a man-to-man team, and that's what we played in '89," Johnson notes.
     Alyssa Jones is the sixth man. Also off the bench come Missy Barnard, Barbie Askew, Samantha Ives, Denise Rivera and Rachel Torres.
     Askew is the one with the sweet voice. Her rendition of "Lean on Me" is a staple of the bus ride home. Everybody joins in, clapping, when she gets to, "you just call on me brother when you need a hand."
     No question, this club has harmony.
     Or maybe it's a harmonious conspiracy, whether it's Michalak getting Priebe to sit in the seat the superstitious Pelcher has to sit in en route to every game, or the whole team collectively figuring out in practice the best way to attack the triangle-and-two defense most opponents throw their way.
     This most certainly is not the dictatorship of T.J.
     "You know how long that would last with this crew?" he laughs. "Not long. There's a lot of basketball experience out here. Sometimes they have better ideas than I do."
     "Coaches need to coach, but sometimes you need the players' perspective of the game," says Michalak.
     "They have a hand in a lot of the decisions," Johnson says. "They own a lot of what we're doing."