Freshman holding her own on the courts

At this time last year, Julia Scoles was an eighth-grader at Brawley Middle School, anxious to prove she could play at the next level.

Scoles, now a freshman at South Iredell High, has put together an impressive resume as a Viking, earning all-Catawba Valley Athletic conference honors as an outside hitter in volleyball. She also excels on the basketball court, where she averages a team-best 19 points, 12 rebounds, four steals and two blocks per game in her first year at the varsity level.

While South Iredell girls’ basketball coach Michael Fisher calls her a “once-in-a-lifetime-type athlete,” if you talk to Scoles, 15, you would hardly know it.

“I don’t really think about what I am doing or what I am accomplishing,” Scoles said. “I just want to go out and play basketball. I try to do everything I can to help my team win.”

Fisher loves the humble nature of his standout freshman.

“Being a freshman, she doesn’t really understand the impact that she is having,” Fisher said. “She just wants to go out and play ball. I think, at this point, that makes her even better because she doesn’t even realize how good she is or how good she can be.”

Scoles’ play has been a big key to the Vikings’ success this season at 10-5 overall, 5-2 in the CVAC, it is their best start in more than a decade. South Iredell won only four games combined in the two years prior to Fisher’s arrival as head coach in the 2009-10 season.

Since then, it has been a different story as the Vikings won 14 games last year, making the 2A playoffs for the second straight season. But with seniors like Aaliyah Jackson (23 ppg, 19 rpg) graduating, Fisher wasn’t sure what the future would bring.

“I knew we would be very young, so I didn’t really know what to expect from this year’s team,” said Fisher, who returned only three varsity players from a year ago. “But when I saw a couple of open gyms, with players like Scoles, I started to think maybe we have something here.”

Ironically, it was Scoles’ play against Jackson in one open gym last summer that first really opened Fisher’s eyes to her talent and competitive nature.

“Aaliyah really tried to take it to Julia,” Fisher said. “But she (Julia) didn’t back down for a minute, and that really impressed me.”

Scoles didn’t waste a minute in showing what she could do, scoring 22 points and grabbing 11 rebounds in her first varsity game, as the Vikings beat North Lincoln 61-58. Scoles followed that up with another impressive outing in game two, with 22 points and eight boards in a loss to state power and rival North Iredell.

Since then, she hasn’t disappointed with seven 20-plus point outings and 10 double figure rebound games, highlighted by a career-best 38 points and 17 rebounds in a rout of West Iredell.

Scoles is also a standout on the defensive side – she had 11 steals against West Iredell and eight steals against Statesville.

While Scoles is excelling for the Vikings, she is also a standout for her AAU team, the Lake Norman Magic, which she says prepared her for the high school game.

The 6-footer can also “jump out of the gym,” and grab the rim, according to Fisher.

“Julia has a lot of talents, but the best thing about her right now is she is like a sponge, she is eager to learn everything about the game,” Fisher said.

While Scoles has been big, she gets a lot of help from her teammates as sophomore point guard, Lakia Hall (11 ppg), junior wings, Miracle Campbell (6 ppg) and Kaylee Johnson (8 ppg) and senior post, Shamiya Coleman (5 ppg) fill out a balance starting lineup, while sophomore Hailey Wright (4 ppg) and Alexandra Dawes (5 rpg), Scoles’ cousin, are big keys off the bench.

Fisher hopes his team can continue to roll into the stretch run in the CVAC and beyond, where they hope to start contending for CVAC title now.

Scoles’ play will have a lot to say about just how far they go now and in the near future.

“I set big goals for myself and my teams,” Scoles said. “I think we’re just starting to learn to play together and get comfortable. I feel like we have just started and we are going to keep getting better and better.”