TANIEHSA HOLLAND Rayen's caged tiger

YOUNGSTOWN -- Ask the boys on the basketball playground -- one of her many foiled opponents, perhaps -- and they will say Taniesha Holland doesn't play like a girl.
It's the ultimate compliment for The Rayen School senior, who grew up with playground hoops before enrolling at Rayen and becoming a four-year starter. At age four, she picked up a ball and began playing with her two older brothers, and she never stopped.
"She's very dedicated to basketball, and she's one of those kids that'll go to the Y and play with the boys," said Tigers coach Holly Seimetz, who, in her 12th season at Rayen, said Holland is "probably the best player I've ever had."
"It's basketball all the time, 24/7," Seimetz said. "She has friends and does other things, but if there's a chance to play basketball, she'll play."
A dominant force
Combining quickness, court-vision and a shooter's touch, Holland has emerged as a bona fide star. While leading Rayen to a 6-1 record, the 5-foot-7 guard is averaging LeBron James-type numbers: 28 points, 7 steals, 6 rebounds and 5 assists.
She is, according to many, the best girls basketball player in the city, if not the area.
"Knowing the city teams, she's head and shoulders the best player in the city," Ursuline High coach Sean Durkin said. "If there's anybody in the city that can contain her, they would be playing on Rayen's team."
Durkin would know. His team played at Rayen on Dec. 4, a game in which Holland knocked down a three-pointer at the end of regulation to force overtime. Rayen eventually won 55-51 in double-overtime behind Holland's 27 points.
In that game, Durkin put his best defender, Tiffani Miller, on Holland, but that defensive assignment quickly changed when Miller, unable to stop Holland's drives to the basket, picked up two early fouls. It was Holland's mad crossovers that had Miller reeling, a move that has "never not worked, from what I've seen," said senior center Rilonda Neal, a close friend.
By the fourth quarter, Durkin had his star frontcourt player, Tyra Grant, trying to stop the guard.
"She's a tough match-up no matter who you put on her," Durkin said. "If you put a big kid on her, she's too quick; if you use a little kid, she's too strong."
Can do anything that's required
Teams have tried different ways of stopping Holland, but the guard has never scored less than 25 points this season. In a Dec. 9 game against Campbell Memorial High, the Red Devils assigned two defenders on Holland, and the result was at times comical. Holland would stand at half court while "we played 4-on-3," Seimetz said.
Holland, however, still filled the stat sheet: 25 points and 11 steals in just three quarters in a 72-28 rout.
"She's just an all-around player," Durkin said. "Whatever [Rayen] needs her to do, she does -- she could score 40, or she could score 10 and still be very effective."
That's a tribute to the guard's versatility. Because Holland grew up with basketball -- she was playing before most kids could tie their shoes -- it should come as no surprise that she's a dominant, even intimating one-on-one player. But as a freshman, what impressed her coach was her ability to find other players on the court and her willingness to distribute the ball.
"She was one of the few city players who really knew the fundamentals," Seimetz said. "A lot of the kids from the junior high program don't have the fundamentals, but I believe with Taniesha's background, with her playing all the time, she knew the game of basketball."
Her teammates, then and now, appreciate that Holland was never a ball hog.
"The way she does things just brightens up everybody," said sophomore Kenysha Tennant, Holland's teammate and, as she likes to say, her "cousin." "It makes people look up to her more, since everything she does is great -- defense, offense, everything. She's just an all-around player, she's got it all."
No longer in the shadows
Even though Holland was coming into a new system as a freshman, the scoring was always there, too. According to Seimetz, Holland averaged 17 points per game as a freshman, 19 as a sophomore and 21 as a junior. During those years, however, she played under the shadows of Boardman High's Amber Bland and Ursuline's Courtney Davidson, the 2003-04 Vindicator Player of the Year.
Bland is now at Penn State and Davidson at Michigan State, so the spotlight falls solely on Holland -- and that's how she likes it.
"It was hard trying to get recognition with [Bland and Davidson] here, but it's my time to show what I have," Holland said. "I'm real happy that I can show people what I can do, so they know I'm a good player."
Over the summer, Holland played AAU basketball for the first time, and she credits that experience for taking her game to the next level. So far, however, Youngstown State has been the only Division I school to offer her a scholarship. Even if a big-time university came calling, Holland would probably have to sit out a year because of her grades, but that's something the senior has made a conscious effort to improve.
This past semester, Holland earned Honorable Mention for the Honor Roll with a 3.0 GPA. She has completed her proficiencies and recently took the ACT college entrance exam.
"I want to play basketball, and you need good grades to make it," Holland said. She also expressed her desire to someday play in the WNBA.
All that, however, is further down the road. For the meantime, Holland has three goals: score 2,000 career points (she has 1,453 so far), finish with a winning record and lead her team to state.
Of those, she said her main goal was making state.
"I want to make it real bad because we've never made it to state -- ever," Holland said. "Even when I wasn't there, Rayen's never made it. That's why I want it, in my last year."