Coach’s philosophy pays off for Lady Vikings

Jennifer Baker has always had basketball in her blood.

The North Mecklenburg girls’ basketball coach grew up in basketball-crazed Indiana and was taken under the wing of her father, Allan, who played college basketball at Providence College with future Hall of Fame Georgetown coach John Thompson.

That pedigree helped establish a love for the game that continues to this day.

“Basketball has always been a big part of my family and my life,” Baker said. “I knew early on that I wanted be involved in the sport, and I have been playing, coaching or both for my most of my life.”

After starring at Homestead High in Fort Wayne, Ind., Baker decided not to pursue playing college basketball. But she quickly got back into the sport as a junior varsity coach at Muncie Central High in Indiana.

Baker, 32, has been a basketball coach ever since. She spent four years at Kannapolis Brown as an assistant and followed that with a three-year stint at Vance before taking the North Meck job in 2009.

“North Meck has always had one of the best basketball traditions in Charlotte, so when I took the job, I knew it was a big deal,” she said. “But I don’t think I understood exactly how much it meant to some of these girls at first.”

Baker’s first day of practice she found out exactly what North Meck basketball is about, as 48 girls arrived 30 minutes early.

From that point on, Baker knew she could turn a team that had gone 7-16 the year before into the consistent winner it had been historically.

That is exactly what Baker has done for the last four years, going 15-11 (2009-10), 14-12 (2010-11) and 14-13 (last year), each time making the playoffs and creeping a little higher in the I-Meck standings.

This year, Baker and her Viking team are having their best start in her tenure, going 8-1 into the East Lincoln Winter Jam holiday tournament as the No. 1 seed.

“We have really come a long way in the last four seasons,” said North Meck point guard Jasmine Bullock, a four-year varsity player under Baker. “We have built a great bond with Coach Baker, and she has been a big part of our improvement. She has believed in us and never doubted, and that means a lot.”

Baker says she remembers the turning point for her season last year, when the Vikings lost a tight game to I-Meck rival Mallard Creek in the semifinals of the East Lincoln Winter Jam. Baker said that in several social media forums, the Mavericks were vocal about how badly they had played, drawing the ire of the North Meck team.

“I think that game and the way we felt after it really changed this team,” Baker said. “That night, we started to believe that we could beat the best teams in our league.”

Baker and her Vikings not only beat Mallard Creek 57-51 at home later in the season, but carried that confidence and momentum in the offseason, when they won their own jamboree for the first time in seven years and lost only once at Coastal Carolina team camp.

North Meck stands out with a balanced attack that includes five or six players who could potentially lead the team in scoring on a given night.

Junior wing Destiny Barrino led the team to start the year, accounting for 13 points, five rebounds and five steals per game. She’s had help from a veteran group with seniors in the starting lineup – Bullock and Kelly Beasley in the backcourt as well as Jasmine Cash and Kelsey Ellison in the front court.

But it doesn’t stop there as junior guard Brianna Jones (nine points per game) and sophomore wing Jaydah Hayden (eight per game) are also big contributors.

“Our team is all about unselfishness and balance,” Baker said. “I tell them all the time that it is easy to stop a person, but when you have to worry about three or four people, it can be tough.”

Baker hopes that her winning formula will continue as I-Meck heats up. The Vikings host Hough (Jan. 4) and travel to Mallard Creek (Jan. 8) in the upcoming week.

This time around, Baker says North Meck isn’t playing for second place. Rather, they want to win the I-Meck and more.

“We don’t want to go back to the mountains or play a first-round game on the road,” Baker said. “The only way to secure that is to win the conference. We want people to come to us.”