Schwartz builds a winner at John Adams Academy

On the back of star player Elliott Schwartz, John Adams Academy's varsity girls basketball team made it all the way to the CIF NorCal Regional semifinals before its season came to an end. Under the direction of coach Anthony Schwartz, 48, the team reached their potential, as he got the most out of his players during their deep playoff run, earning the title of Gold Mountain California News Media's Small School Basketball Coach of the Year. The Patriots finished with a 28-6 record with three losses CIF Division IV state champion Faith Christian. The Patriots had a solid offense built around Elliott Schwartz, who averaged 18 points per game, and the team also played good defense. "We were an unselfish team that definitely got better as the season went on in making the right decisions," Coach Schwartz said. "We had good players, yes, but what I thought everyone did well was that they knew their role, and they knew everyone else's strengths and weaknesses and they just did the best job of making the best basketball decisions. "Secondly, the girls really made a big jump this year defensively, and credit to my assistant coach Liz Gehweiler, who instilled a lot of technical work with the girls defensively. As with a lot of good offensive basketball teams, the offense is a product of the defensive play that happened three seconds before." Schwartz, who surpassed 2,000 career points this season, led the offense, but she had help. "Nadaysia Bowlin blossomed into a very good two-way player who had a nose for getting to the basket," Schwartz said. "Norah Barmby was our primary post player, and although she's not very tall, she shot close to 60 percent from the field and probably had the best understanding of our offense of anyone. She worked really well with Elliott. Oftentimes, Elliott would bring two or three girls with her and Norah always found the open space. "Freshman Parker Schwartz was our other offensive leader. She was our best 3-point shooter and also our best defender." The coach knew before the season he had a team that could make a decent run in the playoffs, but the team still probably got a little further than he thought. A couple of wins during the season made the coach a believer. "The playoffs were new to all of us, as this was only our second year to be eligible," Schwartz said. "In our second playoff game against Destiny Christian, Elliott picked up her third foul midway through the first quarter and then when she came back in she got blasted in the nose and had to come out again. We played a good portion of the game without her and Nadaysia, but honestly, we played better without them and that gave me a lot of hope for the postseason. "Then a game early on in the season against Union Mine; it was probably one of the sloppiest games we played all season but Keliah Gregg willed us to victory in a game that we didn't have much business winning. Seeing a newer player step up having that kind of heart and giving us a chance to win was encouraging." Schwartz, a former hockey player and coach, has coached daughters Elliott and Parker all their lives in youth basketball and AAU. In fact, this season he had former players at Oak Ridge, Ponderosa and Vista del Lago. However, his high school head coaching résumé is just four years at John Adams Academy. "I'm not a super high-energy coach, but I'm also not a grind the players down coach," Schwartz said. "Maybe the exception would be with Elliott, who I'm a little harder on, more to set the example for everyone else. I really try to not punish physical mistakes because I want them to be comfortable if they make mistakes. I don't yank players out of the game if they make a mistake; I want to see players fight through mistakes." Schwartz said as far as coaching goes, he enjoys building a team as much as he enjoys building up individual players. "I like being part of building something," Schwartz said. "I like seeing players realize that they're better than they thought they were. I'm not a big rah-rah guy, but I want players to realize they're better than they think, especially ones who have that competitive streak in them. It's really neat to see them do something that they didn't think they could do. "Acacia Loftis, a junior who was one of the shorter girls on the team, but she's fierce when she's on the court and from seeing her two years ago, having never played the game, to have progressed to where she is now to be a co-captain is what I loved to see."