St. Anthony girls basketball led by Tayler Beett's brain power

LONG BEACH >> Tayler Beett isn’t one of the most athletically gifted student-athletes in Long Beach. However, the St. Anthony High School senior is one of the best girls basketball players in the city.

“Her athletic limitations are exceeded by her extra work and her great basketball mind,” St. Anthony coach James Anderson said.

Beett has a 4.0 grade-point average and will continue her career at Rice University.

“She’s her own toughest critic; she’s a workaholic and she’s a leader by example,” Anderson said.

Beett is averaging 16 points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals per game this season. The top-seeded Saints (19-11) have taken on the personality of their smart self-motivating leader and it has them back in a CIF Southe Section championship game for the first time since 2011 when they won CIF-SS and CIF State regional titles.

St. Anthony will take on No. 2 Cantwell-Sacred Heart in the Division 4A championship Friday at Godinez High in Santa Ana at 5 p.m.

“This team is a lot more battle-tested than the 2010-11 group,” Anderson said.

The Saints have played six of the Open Division teams this season and went 2-4 against the top-tier competition.

“We didn’t always get the results we wanted in those games,” Beett said. “But they got us ready for the most important games of the year so we can smash teams and get to where we need to be. I’m the same way, I always want to challenge myself. It’s the only way to truly improve yourself.”

The Beett name is a legacy at St. Anthony. Her mother, Stephanie, played basketball and volleyball at St. Anthony. Her father, Raymond, played basketball with Anderson. Tayler tried basketball, soccer, swimming and track and field while groing up, but she always loved basketball most of all.

“It was the feeling of the ball in my hands and watching it go though the hoop,” she said. “That was thrilling to me. The game always made sense to me.”

That high basketball IQ allowed Beett to join a travel ball team at 8-years old and helped her make Southe Califoia friends while her family moved around a lot.

“Basketball has given me so many opportunities,” Beett said. “It helped me meet so many different people, some of whom I call my best friends today.”

Beett’s cousin, Emma, also went to St. Anthony, so Tayler was on the St. Anthony campus a lot while attending Oak Middle School. She would come to basketball practice and then take the floor after the Saints were done.

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“She’s always been like that,” Anderson said. “You don’t have to tell Tayler to work. She’s already doing it on her own.”

“Tayler has always been tough and a lot of the time it’s my husband and I telling her, ‘It’s OK,’ because her expectations are so high,” Stephanie said. “She’s had tough, demanding coaches. I think that’s made her very coachable. She’s able to listen to the words, not how they’re being yelled.”

Beett said attending St. Anthony was an easy decision, and one her parents let her make on her own. By her sophomore year, Beett was a starter.

“We had just lost a lot of great players like Kendall Cooper,” Anderson recalled. “It was huge to get (Beett) and she’s made great improvements. Like her quick release. She was measuring too much, so we worked on it and now when it hits her hand, it’s gone.”

That court awareness and quick shot helped Beett score a team-high 18 points in an 85-46 quarterfinal win over Mayfield last weekend. The Saints put Mayfield away quickly with stingy defense and transition offense. Beett and fellow guard Tiara Scott sparked a 17-0 second-quarter run in the open floor during which Beett scored 11 points.

“We want to play at our pace and our pace is fast,” Anderson said. “I’m happy with what we’re doing. This is what we wanted (the playoff results) to look like when we made our schedule.”

The Saints have won their four playoff games by margins of 41, 64, 39, and 37 points to ea this spot in the section final.

“Honestly, I’d rather play in the Open Division,” Anderson said.

His team lost in the first round of the Open Division last year.

“We always want to play the best teams,” he said. “Wiing (in 2010-11) put us on the map and helped us get games against Windward and Mater Dei. Now we’re blessed to have a chance to win one.”

“I don’t think I’ll be nervous before the championship,” Beett said. “If you prepare for every game like it’s a championship, you don’t have to get nervous. You’re just playing another basketball game.”

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