WEST LIBERTY
Brylee Gearhart, a senior at Mid-Prairie High School, was home checking her phone last Friday when she saw a text from Callie Huber.
Just like any other day.
Brylee and …
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WEST LIBERTY
Brylee Gearhart, a senior at Mid-Prairie High School, was home checking her phone last Friday when she saw a text from Callie Huber.
Just like any other day.
Brylee and Callie aren’t just senior teammates on the girls basketball team at Mid-Prairie. They’re best friends. They play the same position in basketball and in volleyball. They’re talking in practice, before practice, after practice. When the game’s over, they go to the snack bar together. And then they sit in the same place in the bleachers, home or away.
They’ve known each other since elementary school.
They might even go to the same college next year.
“We’re best friends,” Huber said. “We’re like sisters.”
About that text …
Huber, the Golden Hawks’ starting center, had re-injured an ankle so badly that she couldn’t play in the first game of the new year, January 3, at West Liberty. Gearhart would hear those same words from coach Danny Hershberger later in the day. But the text from her best friend came first.
Huber: “I don’t think I’m going to play today. My ankle still really hurts.”
The return text from Gearhart: “I guess I’ll be playing quite a lot then.”
LOL
The fact that Gearhart would be making her first start of the season was no big deal. She plays lots of minutes for the Golden Hawks, often right beside her bestie when Hershberger chooses to go with double posts, both standing at least 6 feet tall, and double rebounding machines in the paint. Together, they are probably the best rebounding combination in the River Valley South, if not all of southeastern Iowa. Huber is the defending rebounding champion in the River Valley South. This year, they both rank among the league’s top seven in boards.
But something funny happened Friday.
After starting her first game of the season against one of Mid-Prairie’s biggest conference rivals, Gearhart was on the bench just minutes into the game. Two early fouls landed her there. Suddenly, the Golden Hawks didn’t have either one of them.
“I was like, are you kidding me?” Gearhart said.
“I haven’t fouled out in like so long, and here we are.”
Huber, who hadn’t even dressed out for the game in uniform, was now sitting alongside her best friend.
“I’m like, Brylee, you’ve been doing so good not getting in foul trouble. The one day that we have one post, you get two in the first quarter. What are you doing?”
LOL
Together after the game, the two besties laugh about it. Gearhart scored a double-double, a career-high 18 points and a career-high 12 rebounds, in a 66-58 overtime victory that extended the Golden Hawks’ win streak to seven. She missed only three shots. She ripped out seven offensive rebounds, six more than anybody else on the team, and also had a blocked shot on defense.
Oh, and she was whistled for only one more foul the rest of the game.
This was a career night. No question.
“She had a great second half,” Hershberger said. “Proud of her for stepping up and kind of late notice, ‘Hey, you’re starting.’ Being ready to go. She did a great job with that.”
Once, when Gearhart got back to the bench, Huber told her: “You’re doing great. Keep going. Rebound, we need rebounds! Go!”
“You’ve got everyone else around you crashing, too, and being the tallest one out there you know that you’re expected to get the ball,” Gearhart said. “That ball is yours. Especially in those clutch moments where we need points and we need the ball.”
Standing in the snack bar area at West Liberty High School after it was over, they shared a laugh about the events of the day, and the night.
It has been that kind of a senior year.
Huber and Gearhart played on the front line during Mid-Prairie’s run to the state tournament in volleyball in the fall. They ranked among the top six in blocks in the River Valley South as the Golden Hawks captured a River Valley South title and a school-record 33 wins. In basketball, they join a number of other volleyballers, including Katelyn Harlan, Jeorgia Evans, Tessa Bombei and Izzy Kite.
“It kind of flowed over,” Huber said. “Like we can win there, we can win here. We have some amazing athletes. We can have a great season.”
And then, there are these sisters. They played ball together in elementary school, middle school and now in high school.
“It was really weird because we’ve been playing together since we were in fifth grade,” Gearhart said. “It was just so weird to think like, ‘OK, I have to just be out there and lead the entire time all by myself.”
When Huber needed an ankle brace, Gearhart gave her the one that she had.
Sisters.
“It’s just really nice to know that she can set up and be there,” Huber said. “It’s amazing.”
News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @bowkerpaul