Mitch Stephens, sfchronicle.com, March 26, 2019
From Courtney Paris to Jayne Appel to Sabrina Ionescu, the Bay Area has been blessed with some of the finest high school girls’ basketball players in the country.
Haley Jones just might turn out to be the best of the bunch.
The 6-foot-1 senior from Mitty has repeated as The Chronicle’s Metro Player of the Year. It was an easy call, given that the Stanford-bound player was named the Naismith National Girls Player of the Year by the Atlanta Tipoff Club on March 15.
Jones entered the season ranked as the No. 1 senior recruit in the nation by ESPN and only improved her game and reputation with one of the most dominating seasons in Bay Area history.
She averaged 26.1 points, 12.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 2.7 steals and 2.8 blocks while leading the Monarchs (25-3) to their fourth consecutive Central Coast Section title. Mitty finished the season ranked fourth in MaxPreps’ national computer rankings.
Haley Jones
Jones controlled both the perimeter and the paint, leading Mitty coach Sue Phillips to call her “the poster child for position-less basketball.”
Phillips, who will coach against Jones in Wednesday’s McDonald’s All-American game in Atlanta, knew she had something special when Jones arrived at Mitty, the winningest girls program in Northern California history.
“It was the beautiful process to watch this young woman evolve and grow in terms of leadership, confidence and all facets of her game that was so special,” Phillips said.
Her stats grew every season in every category and her teams did not lose a West Catholic Athletic League or Central Coast Section game during her career. Overall, Mitty with Jones was 105-11.
Asked to carry the scoring load this season, Jones did so effortlessly while getting her teammates involved.
“Everyone understands their role at Mitty,” she said. “I just tried to be a leader, whether that was as a facilitator or scorer, defender, rebounder. I just wanted to be a leader every night.”
Salesian-Richmond coach Stephen Pezzolo said it was “embarrassing,” the amount of time he spent planning defenses for Jones. It worked, sort of: Jones averaged 22 points and 12 rebounds in two games against the Pride.
“She’s simply the complete player,” he said. “She can initiate the offense and lead her team in assists. She can shoot the 3 with the best of them. Her offensive rebounding is beyond uncanny as she just intuitively knows where the ball will go. Defensively, she can defend the wing to the post and is a great off-ball defender. Her skill set has no holes.”
Jones scored at least 30 nine times, with a career-high 43 — to go with 14 rebounds, seven assists and six steals — in a win over St. Francis. Along the way, she passed three-time Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings as the school’s career scoring leader (2,127 points). Jones set the school career record for shooting percentage at 63.
Scoring merely begins to tell Jones’ impact at Mitty, Phillips said, noting her 1,058 career rebounds, 400 assists, 252 steals and 240 blocks.
“Haley’s name is riddled throughout every category of our record book,” Phillips said. “It’s sort of mind-boggling to think of all her accomplishments.”
Jones said she was blown away to see the previous 30 Naismith winners named before her. The list includes many of the sports’ all-time greats, including Lisa Leslie, Diana Taurasi, Candace Parker and Maya Moore. Paris (2005) was the only other Bay Area winner.
“It’s really sort of surreal to win such a prestigious award,” she said the day the Naismith winners were announced. “Going through the pool of athletes who won it before, it’s just such an honor. It’s amazing.”
Which makes Jones befitting of the award, Phillips said.
“Through all the many accomplishments and even setbacks, she handled everything with such poise and grace,” Phillips said. “I’ve been very spoiled to have her every day at practice and games for four years. She’ll be so greatly missed.”
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