Shawe head girls basketball coach Drew Kring can pinpoint the very moment that he realized freshman Audrey Barron was going to be a star. It wasn’t long after she put on the Shawe uniform for the very first time.
“The first practice,” Kring said with a smile.
No Shawe player in recent memory has begun her career with more hype but Barron lived up to that and more, leading the Hilltoppers to a record-setting season and earning this year’s Madison Courier Girls Basketball Player of the Year award.
Barron showcased her shooting ability in her very first game but it wasn’t until midseason that she hit her stride. By that time, the Hilltoppers were humming on all cylinders, en route to a school-record 17 wins and the program’s first Ohio River Valley Conference championship.
Barron had been turning heads at the junior high level for several years and much was expected from her when she finally got a chance to play in high school. Nobody had higher expectations than Barron herself, who was ready to play right away.
“I fell like I did pretty good, but I could do better,” Barron said. “I could be more confident in some of the games.”
It might surprise some that Barron feels that she could be more confident, but it was something that Kring noticed as well. Athletic and standing 5-foot-8, Barron was a matchup nightmare on the inside, but she spent much of the season settling for outside jumpers.
Both player and coach feel like she will have more success once she begins consistently going to the rim.
“She has the ability to pretty much do whatever she wants on the court and it goes back to that confidence of when she starts to figure some things out,” Kring said. “I think as you saw her progression through the season, you really saw that confidence come through.”
Kring said he could really see it click for Barron during a game at Rock Creek in early January. Despite facing a junk defense, Barron exploded for a career-high 27 points as the Hilltoppers rallied to beat the 15-win Lions by four points.
Barron used every weapon in her arsenal to lead Shawe back in that game and Kring thinks that performance was just a sign of things to come.
“Coming into this year, you knew there was the ability not just with her but with the entire team and I don’t think the entire team knew exactly how good they could be, just like her. I don’t think any of them have reached their full potential,” Kring said of his team. “I would say that Rock Creek game was a game that everything kind of clicked for her. It was like, here we go. And she really dominated that game from start to finish. They threw a junk defense at us and it kind of stymied us a little bit as an entire team, but once we saw it again, we were ready for it.”
Barron ended up averaging 15.8 points per game, tops in both the area and the ORVC, and added 5.8 rebounds per game while shooting 49% from the floor and 77% from the free-throw line.
Barron believes that part of her success can be attributed to the fact that, even as a freshman, she has played with her teammates for a long time. The Hilltoppers started two sophomores and two freshmen, all of whom had tremendous success in junior high school.
“We kind of have played together forever,” Barron said. “I played with Allison (Knoebel) and Ava (Turner) for a couple years and we have played with Hunter (Mote) a bunch. We just fit together.”
Barron still has three years left in her high school career and she has high expectations. She wants to avenge Shawe’s sectional loss to Trinity Lutheran and hopes to bring the school its first-ever sectional championship.
She also has lofty personal goals after high school.
“I want to play in college. Hopefully Division I,” she said with a smile. “Maybe even IU.”
“She’s not a big talker. She’s like a lot of us, we’re all about the business in front of us,” Kring said. “These girls are concerned about one stat and one stat only and that’s winning, and she’s no different. I think she’d give up every one of these awards to have another shot at that sectional.”