It’s common for a star girls basketball player to have been roughed up by older brothers growing up, but the upbringing of Homewood-Flossmoor’s Aunyai Deere took that to the nth degree.
The junior guard had six older brothers plus a younger brother showing her the ropes the hard way. Some of them also played football, so these games were not for the faint of heart.
“Basically, they would push me and try to out-tough me,” Deere said, “That’s how I started to play with aggression. Then I started beating them, and that’s how I got to be the player I am.
“They kept telling me that I had to be tough and I had to keep playing, because when I play in a game, I had to keep pushing through.”
Deere, who has developed an all-around game, kept pushing through Tuesday night.
The 5-foot-8 Deere had 15 points, nine rebounds and three steals for the Vikings in a 61-51 win over Lincoln-Way East in a SouthWest Suburban Conference opener for both teams in Frankfort.
Freshman guard Laila Williams paced H-F (4-3, 1-0) with 16 points and five 3-pointers. Sophomore guard Shi’Lyn Jordan added 13 points and five rebounds. Freshman guard Zoey Ratliff had 10 points.
Emerson Nilsson scored 16 points to lead Lincoln-Way East (3-2, 0-1), which honored coach Jim Nair before the game for his 250th win that he earned last week at the Brenda Whitesell Classic. Alaina Vargas added 13 points and Mia Limpin had five steals.
H-F was coming off a three-game losing streak at the Benet-Naperville Central Tip-Off Tournament — 63-40 to Benet, 79-42 to Kenwood and 54-35 to Batavia. But the Vikings gained a shot in the arm by jumping out and taking leads of 25-10, 35-17 and 44-25.
“It was hard for us to take those kinds of losses,” Deere said of the losing streak. “There were times we weren’t motivated to be playing, but we got back to practice and got it done.
“There are going to be times we are going to lose, but you have to keep playing because eventually we will win again.”
Deere is a third-year varsity player who is now being asked to take on a leadership role for a roster with three freshmen and three sophomores.
“She’s a leader by example,” H-F coach Tony Smith said of Deere. “She’s a kid who works hard. She’s always working to try to become a very good player and the younger kids look up to her.”
“She encourages us and pushes us,” Williams said of Deere. “She’s helping me grow as a player.”
Smith has coached at Bolingbrook and H-F since 2003. He said he’s never had a three-game losing streak.
The immediate schedule doesn’t get much easier as the Vikings face Fremd on Saturday and Bolingbrook on Sunday. Fremd took third in the state in Class 4A last season.
“They were three better than us,” Smith said of the losing streak. “They kicked our tail from start to finish. We were disappointed on how we competed. We were big-eyed and froze up.
“Hopefully, we learned from it. That’s why we play those games early. We are H-F and they weren’t going to take it easy on us.”
Deere knows she will be counted on to contribute in various ways on the court, but she will also need to keep the younger players going during some of the tougher upcoming matchups.
“I want to try to get them to play hard and understand what it’s like to be on varsity,” Deere said. “Playing on varsity is a little hard at times but they have to keep going.
“They have to work through it and during the tough times they have to keep playing hard.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
