When Lindsey Mayle defeated the other 10-year-old girls at the Ohio 2009 Knights of Columbus Free Throw Championship, she received a trophy she can easily hide behind.

If the daughter of Tim and Debbie Mayle has her way, that trophy will have to make room for another in a few weeks.

Mayle learned June 23 that she is the Junior Olympics’ 10-11-year-old East Coast basketball-shooting skills champion. On July 23, she will fly to California, to compete for the national title at the Junior Olympic National Skills Competition at the Arco Arena Olympic Training Facility in Chula Vista.

“I was really happy,” Mayle said. “It means all my hard work paid off.”

The inspiration for all the hard work came from Mayle’s big sister, Shay Selby, a 2008 Regina graduate, who averaged 2.8 points for the powerful Duke Blue Devils as a freshman last season.

“Shay has been a really big influence,” Mayle said. “I was about 4, and we had a plastic hoop in the house and a bouncy ball. I would try to dribble and shoot. I always wanted to be as good as Shay.”

Even Mayle’s family nickname springs from a moment she shared with Selby, although not on the basketball court.

“I was probably in the third grade, and we were at my Nanny’s – my grandmother’s – helping set up food for a picnic,” Mayle said. “Shay was coming through a door, and I shut it on her finger. She had to go to the hospital.”

Since then, Lindsey has been known as “The Slammer.”

To be as good as her sister, Mayle, who enters the sixth grade at Austinburg Elementary in the fall, will have to be better than almost everyone else. The recent telephone call confirmed that she is well on way.

Becoming the East Coast shooting skills champ is no small accomplishment. To advance, Mayle had to win the local competition held in Lakewood and the regional tournament in Euclid. Then she had to wait.

“There are about 50 regional tournaments in the East Coast region,” Tim Mayle said. “They take the scores of all the winners and check them, and the one with the best score advances to the nationals.”

The competitors earn their scores in a 45-second shooting spree, shooting as many times as they can in that period. They can shoot from any of the six designated spots on the court, but they can take no more than two consecutive shots from the same spot and they must rebound their own shots. The value of a basket varies from one to five points and is determined by where the shot was made.

“They mark the spots with circles, and you have to have at least one foot in the circle when you shoot,” Mayle said. “It’s really important, because if you don’t have a foot in the circle, the basket doesn’t count.”

To prepare for the national tournament, where she will face the Central and West Coast champions in one final round, Mayle has been practicing long and hard this summer. She practices several hours at a stretch with an AAU middle school team and an AAU high school team at Perry. According to teamxtremebb.com, she is more than holding her own against the older competition.

When she’s home, Mayle isn’t far from a basketball court. There’s one in the backyard. And she gets help from Selby.

“Shay helps me train at the Y and at Perry,” Mayle said. “She tells me to keep practicing if I want to get better. She tells me to never give up. She says if I keep working hard, good things will follow.”

Lindsey and Tim Mayle fly to San Diego on July 23 and return three days later.

“Tim is going with Lindsey,” Debbie Mayle said. “He has worked so hard to help her get ready and help her train. His reward is to get to see Lindsey perform.”

While they’re in California, the important business is Lindsey’s pursuit of the national championship. She has set a lofty goal.

“I want the gold medal,” she said. “I’m nervous. But I’m confident, too, because I’ve worked hard, and I know I should be able to pull it off. And everyone is so supportive – my mom and dad, Shay. Everybody is giving me encouragement.”

While there, Lindsey and the other competitors in basketball and other sports will visit the San Diego Zoo and go to Dave & Buster’s.

“You get to play a bunch of games and eat at Dave & Buster’s,” she said.

That all this was made possible by a game she loves isn’t lost on Lindsey.

“To be able to get out and play with a bunch of people everyday is a lot fun,” Mayle said. “And basketball has a lot of rewards. If you’re good enough, you can get a good deal at a nice college.”



Harris is a freelance writer from Ashtabula Township.