As a 5-foot fifth-grader, North Allegheny’s Leah Skweres never even considered playing basketball.
Then it kind of grew on her.
“I really just didn’t pay attention to it as a sport,” she said. “In sixth grade, I shot up height-wise. I went from being 5-foot in fifth grade to 5-6 in sixth grade. My mom was like, ‘Yeah, we should probably sign you up for basketball.’ ”
Skweres, now a 5-8 senior guard, has blossomed into an energetic leader for the Tigers (5-7, 3-2 in Section 6A as of Jan. 17), who continue to distance themselves from a five-game December skid.
Skweres, who had little varsity experience before this season, was averaging 7.3 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 2.6 deflections and 2.0 steals through mid-January.
“I feel like she is a totally different person than she was when I first met her, in the best way possible,” North Allegheny first-year coach Gabby Baldasare said. “She makes it really hard to take her out of the game, which is not something I could have said a few months ago.”
Skweres (pronounced “squares”) does a little bit of everything for the Tigers, who are trying to reach the WPIAL playoffs for the 18th consecutive season. She scored a career-high 21 points in a 63-31 victory at Woodland Hills on Jan. 7.
“She’s just all over the place,” Baldasare said. “She does everything. Her energy level is unmatched. … Watching her is like watching my 10-week-old puppy. I don’t know where all the energy comes from. She never takes off a play.
“She gets her hands on everything on the defensive end. She rebounds. She handles the ball. She scores. She’s aggressive. And her mouth is also never closed. She’s out there talking and directing traffic.”
Skweres, who also ran track and played field hockey over the years, devoted herself to basketball this offseason in preparation for her increased role on varsity.
She traveled with the AAU Legends and played in the CJ2K outdoor league and the Steel City summer league, where she was the No. 4 overall pick in the Mon Valley league’s player draft.
“I just tried to get in as much basketball as I could,” she said. “It helped my confidence.”
While the Tigers’ record is below .500 — the program hasn’t had a non-winning season since going 12-12 in 2006 — they are improving. The Tigers, who graduated four starters from last season’s 23-4 WPIAL runner-up, beat Woodland Hills, North Hills (51-35) and Butler (52-30) in an eight-day span in mid-January for their first winning streak of the season.
“It was definitely tough (early on), but I think people are starting to get more comfortable in their roles and playing better,” Skweres said. “I think we are finally starting to mesh as a team. It took us a minute to get comfortable being uncomfortable.”
The Tigers host Seneca Valley on Jan. 24 before traveling to Pine-Richland, where Baldasare coached the past two seasons, on Jan. 27.
Skweres failed to make a basket in the first meeting with Pine-Richland on Jan. 3, a 34-25 loss that was NA’s seventh loss in eight games before the recent turnaround.
Skweres plans to play in college and is looking at Division III programs Juniata, Geneva and Houghton (N.Y.) as well as a couple of D-II schools. In the meantime, she is giving her all to an NA program that has reached the WPIAL title game eight times in the past nine seasons, with five championships.
“She is a super athletic kid, and she makes great use of what size she does have,” Baldasare said. “Because she’s so athletic, it makes her seem longer than she is.”