We all watched as the iconic 2023-24 girls basketball season unfolded before our eyes just this year. Led by Coach Daly and senior captain Rayquel Allen, the Knights shot for perfection and ended the regular season undefeated, following the footsteps of the 2001 team that went undefeated twenty-three years ago. The 2001 team were state champions, but their success was swept under the rug and they never received proper recognition.
“Seeing how they got done wrong, we just knew that we had to make that special for them because we know if it was us in 2024, we would want the same thing done for us,” says Allen, referring to the 2001 team. “So just hearing them, hearing their stories, hearing how they beat adversity till this point, it was just something that weighed heavy on my heart, specifically being a senior.”
This year, Andy Jones, Charlottesville High School’s Athletic Director, organized a ring ceremony for the champions, in which the current Black Knights were paired with a former player and presented the ring to them. However, this connection didn’t stop at the ceremony. The girls kept in touch with the older players who offered them helpful advice, support, and encouragement throughout the season.
“We did pen pals about a week before they got their rings,” says Allen. This special connection helped encourage the current team throughout their best season yet.
Additionally, the team’s success seemed to come from a new mindset the girls had been focused on since the end of their season last year.
“I just emphasized that we needed to have the best practice possible because not everybody gets this opportunity,” says Allen, “[and] confidence because we had the same exact team and this year [but] we went farther just because everyone had the confidence that they needed.” Allen then concluded that these two things that she had emphasized at the beginning of the season, “helped each and every one of us [in] every game and every practice.” Along with confidence, the team started putting in hard work last April to ensure they were prepared to compete.
“We started in April coming to open gyms and stuff, so that added to the team chemistry, whereas in years before we had started right when the season started so it helped a lot that we all had a different mindset this year so our goals kinda all aligned with each other which gave us good team chemistry,” says returning junior Eva Floyd. This motivation to begin the season’s work early did not go unappreciated by CoachDaly. “I give a lot of credit to the girls who were on the team last year and this year– they were in the gym two days a week from April on,” says Daly.
Although he coached the girls to a successful season –notching two hundred wins and winning Coach of the Year– he believes the work that they committed to put in was the main factor of their outstanding performance this year.
Many aspects of this year’s team helped push them further and further into success as they destroyed any team that stood in their way. “We talked all summer about playing faster,” says Daly. “We wanted to push the tempo, push more threes, we wanted to try and shoot twice as many threes as last year.”
And they did just that, scoring as many as eighty-nine points in a game against Louisa County. The team roster, full of versatile talent, scored double the amount they did last season by finding players such as junior Eva Floyd, sophomore Avery Stavitski, and sophomore Caitlyn King open for a three-point shot.
Additionally, their play was much faster from the year prior, and key players such as Stavitski and Allen were able to make their way through their opponent’s defenses with both ease and skill, as they drove toward the basket. These two players helped lead the offensive drive, and both made the VHSL All-Region First Team; Stavistki, averaging 14.4 points per game, and Allen with 13.1 points, reaching a career milestone of 1,000 points in a game against Louisa County.
The grit and drive of the team were quite apparent from the beginning of the season, but so was the team chemistry. From devoted coaching to consistent practices to new play angles, this team took CHS girls basketball to the next level and accomplished a historical season.
