Always moving: Addy Huss energizes Cleveland girls basketball

Published 12:00 am Friday, January 28, 2022

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Stopping Addy Huss isn’t an easy task — on or off the basketball court.

The Cleveland High girls basketball point guard is a do-it-all sophomore for the Warriors on the court, and she also reps the green and yellow in soccer, cross country and track and field.

Much like her athletic life, her basketball game is always moving and shaking, which is why she’s emerged as the Warriors’ No. 1 scoring threat so early in her high school career.

“I’m pretty sure she was our leading scorer as a freshman in that weird spring season,” Warriors coach Poeke Waiwaiole said. “I basically could never sub her if I needed to, she can play the whole game. She doesn’t ever get tired, she keeps going.”

Not getting tired is a bad sign for opponents, who have to honor Huss at all three levels of scoring.

Whether it’s stepping back for a 3-pointer, pulling up from the elbow or driving to the rack, Huss stores the energy to keep attacking at will.

Not only has Huss shown her offensive capabilities, but she’s an improving defender and can play much larger than her point guard size.

“She’s obviously still young and working on the consistency piece, but she can score at all three levels,” Waiwaiole said. “She started out being a very adequate defender, and I think she’ll just keep getting better at that. She’s one of our better rebounders from the guard position, she fights in there as well as anybody else does.”

Fighting would be an accurate term for this Cleveland girls team after looking over the rankings and polls in Class 6A.

Fellow PIL schools in Benson, Ida B. Wells and Jefferson are all in the top 11 of the OSAA rankings. However, they aren’t all in the top three of the league.

Insert the Warriors, who are 5-1 in league play and 10-4 overall, but only No. 21 in the OSAA rankings.

Powering these Warriors into the underdog role has been Huss, and now to finish the job, Waiwaiole wants to see his team fully execute for 32 minutes.

“Those are the three (teams) early on who have established themselves,” Waiwaiole said. “Can somebody figure out how to get into that top three? It’s going to come down to, can you actually be consistent? Take advantage of what you get and not get rattled. Don’t settle too early for the wrong thing.”

There will be plenty of tests the rest of the way as Cleveland still has one more with Jefferson (Feb. 1) and both matchups still with Benson (Feb. 18 and 24) and Wells (Feb. 11 and 16).

Helping Huss on the Warriors sideline are five experienced seniors in Saddie Kloeppel, Riana Lancaster, Stella Blaha, Claire Denning and Lily Salimena.

Mixing in their experience with Huss, who Waiwaiole describes as having a pretty unflappable personality, the Warriors have the demeanor to make some noise the rest of the way.

“The sky’s the limit for (Huss),” Waiwaiole said. “She’s got two more years of high school on top of this one, and I think she can be player of the year by the time it’s all said and done.”