Torment basketball provides team for girls to play and belong

What happens if you have a Basketball Jones, but you can’t find a team?

What if you have a Basketball Jones and there are opportunities for boys to play on a team and not for girls to play on a team?

What if you’re only 9 years old?

These are questions that young girls in Central Illinois have to find answers to as they begin the figure out their interests.

Ten-year-old Allie Weidner from Monticello saw that there were opportunities to play basketball in her town, but not for girls her age.

“All the boys in our school get to play, and we don’t,” she said. “I don’t think it’s really fair.”

Andrea Flenniken, a 1996 St. Joseph-Ogden graduate, and Heather Craven, a 1996 Unity graduate,  saw the need, too.

Flenniken said she didn’t have an opportunity to play outside of school growing up, either.

“There was nothing,” Flenniken said. “We didn’t have that opportunity as kids.”

High school rivals Flenniken and Craven admit they didn’t like each other very much growing up.

It wasn’t until Craven visited Flenniken’s house in Pesotum during a garage sale six years ago that the two even talked much.

Knowing that Craven went on to play basketball at Danville Community College, Flenniken asked Craven if she would coach her daughter, Raegen Stringer, one-on-one.

Seeing that Raegen’s friends, Katey Moore and Addison Ray, were also interested in basketball, too, Flenniken then asked Craven to coach a travel team so that the girls would grow up playing the game they love.

“She was kind of a little hesitant at first, but she said if I set everything up, she would coach,” Flenniken said.

Craven took the-then fifth-grade students, Stringer, Moore and Ray from Unity, alongside Halle Brazelton and Addison Frick from St. Joseph, and Tayten Hunter from Franklin to form the first Torment basketball team three years ago.

Ruari Quarnstrom from St. Matthew’s joined the team two years ago and Josie Armstrong from Shiloh, and Jocelyn LeFairve from St. Thomas Philo joined the team this year.

Over those years, on almost a weekly basis, Flenniken and Craven received messages from parents throughout the Champaign County area looking for a team that their daughters could be a part of.

“It gives kids a way to play basketball, especially girls,” Craven said. “They don’t have that many opportunities around here.”

Because of its popularity, Craven coaches fourth-, fifth-, sixth– and seventh-grade Torment teams full of girls from Champaign, Piatt, Vermilion and Douglas counties who are looking for a place to play and belong.

Mahomet-Seymour athletes Alivia Lewis and Erin Dallas are part of the fifth-grade Torment team, which is already paying off for the local players.

As seventh-graders, Stringer, Moore and Ray were part of the Unity basketball team that advanced to the IESA State Tournament.

The girls believe that they found that success through the direction they receive from Craven throughout the off season.

“She pushes you,” Moore said.

“She pushes us, and we get to play against better competition,” Stringer said.

Remembering the rivalry between Unity and St. Joseph, Flenniken said she enjoys watching the teammates as they face off while playing against each other in school competition.

“Normally they’d be huge rivals, and when they play they are,” Craven said, “but they step off the court and they are back to being friends again.

“We didn’t have that opportunity to learn about different types of people. They all get to come together (through travel basketball) and become friends in ways that they normally wouldn’t be able to.”

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Because there aren’t many local girls’ basketball travel teams in the Central Illinois area, the Torment teams travel to Peoria, Washington, St. Louis, Chicago and Indianapolis often to find competition during the winter months.

It is through staying overnight in hotels, eating meals together and swimming in pools that the girls create memories that keep them coming back year-after-year.

“We pretty much never leave each other,” Moore said.

“We have a ton of inside jokes,” Ray said.

“(Torment) is a great way to meet new friends. We encourage each other and work as a team,” Hunter said.

Understanding what it takes to be a varsity player, Craven doesn’t let the girls’ age dictate their potential.

Practicing twice a week, the Torment teams work on fundamentals, big-picture basketball and conditioning that challenges their mental toughness.

While they might whimper on the sidelines when they have to run another suicide drill, the girls like to be pushed, though.

“She teaches us all of the basic stuff before we learn the more complex stuff,” Frick said.

“I love the aggressiveness,” Ray said. “It helps you build character.”

“I think it makes our friendship better because we trust each other,” 10-year-old Audrey Gooding, a student-athlete from St. Matthew said. “In sports you have to trust other people.”

Craven knows that the athlete’s growth takes time, though.

“Hopefully they develop in confidence, and hopefully I can help with that,” Craven said. “You always have the basic basketball fundamentals: footwork, shooting, passing. But their communication gets better, and their ability to be a member of a team gets better, too.

“It’s a team sport, and they need to learn to work as a team. The best player to the worst player on the team is important. They all have something to contribute, no matter how big or small it is. Hard work will pay off eventually.”

For Gooding, a change is already happening.

“I’ve learned a lot about passing, and where to look,” she said.

Craven also hopes that the girls learn some life lessons along the way, too. Before each game or when teammates are down, the girls share inspirational messages with each other.

Stringer’s favorite quotes is, “it’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.”

Craven said, “We’re small in terms of basketball size, but their hearts are huge.”

The Torment basketball program has spurred regional interest for additional teams. And it’s also breeding an environment where young girls are seeing their sisters succeed to the point where they begin to follow in their footsteps.

Nine-year-old Natalie from St. Thomas More likes to shoot and pass.

“My sister played on (Torment) before, and I wanted to be on it, too,” she said.