Basketball: Silly or serious, forward will get it done (03-07-07)
Sophomore blends dry off-court wit with aggressive on-court mentality -- By Craig Juer (Daily Staff Writer)
QUICKSBURG — To paraphrase one of the inside jokes Stonewall Jackson's players tell to keep each other in stitches, it's Molly Beall's world.
The rest of the Generals just play in it.
Beall, Stonewall's sophomore forward, has an eccentric sense of humor that contrasts starkly with the on-court persona that takes over after the opening tip.
"She's funny; she's in her own world," teammate Connor Shirley said Tuesday. "[But] when she starts playing, she gets really serious. Then she's 'serious Molly,' and we laugh at her anyway."
After practice Tuesday, Shirley and senior guard Brittany Koontz brainstormed briefly to come up with an apt summation of Beall's character.
"She's crazy-lazy Molly," Shirley suggested.
"This is what she was doing in practice today," she offered as an example before singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," complete with imitated hand motions.
Beall, who disputed the "crazy" charge but pleaded nolo contendere to laziness, means more to the Generals' success than is obvious. Her 11.5 points per game, second on the team to Kallie Hovatter's 21.9, speak for themselves, but it's the efficiency she adds to the offense that bears mentioning.
She shoots 55 percent from the floor but also tracks down errant entry passes and dishes, brings down and puts back rebounds and gets to the free-throw line.
"When she seals, she'll seal at the right time for however long she needs to, and it's perfect every time," Koontz said. "And if we make a bad pass or something to her, she'll catch it. She has really good hands. That's probably the best thing she does, catch the ball, because we make really crazy passes to her sometimes."
Hovatter and Beall work well together because of all the attention teams give to the Division I-bound Hovatter. When driving into the lane, Hovatter will occasionally get one-on-one coverage if the help defender is sticking with Beall to guard against the layup.
More often, though, Beall's defender abandons her to help on Hovatter, giving the senior the opportunity to dish for an easy basket.
"A lot of times, teams collapse on me, and the center is a lot of times open, so she's able to recognize and make plays," Hovatter said. "She's probably one of the better finishers on the team, as far as catching and making plays."
Beall, who coach Jeff Burner said was "maybe 5-foot-8," is also adept at taking a pummeling down low.
"Molly's just a tough kid," Burner said. "She's so physical. Right now, she has some of the biggest bruises you've ever seen in your life."
Burner agreed that Beall's personality is unrecognizable on the court from off.
"She has this real dry sense of humor that cracks you up all the time," he said. "We were talking about some team put something [in the paper] about us having one real good player [Hovatter], and Molly goes, 'Yeah, I know, teams try to deal with me and stuff.' It was just great, I just lost it."
But when it's time to play ball, Beall's mind has one track.
"The nature of where she plays, it has to be that way," Burner said. "She's so physical inside. She definitely gets serious."
Beall has averaged 16.8 points in the four games since regional competition started, just half a point less than Hovatter's average over that stretch. Burner said Beall's ability to score down low has not only augmented Hovatter's game but has made the whole team more complete.
"The year before Molly got to varsity, Kallie averaged 24 points a game and was doing a lot of the same things," he said. "But we did not have the inside finishing presence that she's brought to us."
Burner said there's a lot more to Beall that the Generals haven't had to display.
"The thing is, skill-level wise, most of you have not seen even the surface of what she can do," he said. "She's a great spot-up shooter, too, but we don't use that as much because for us, she's more effective on the block.
"There's a kid who's probably got over 600 career points now [and] she's only a sophomore. That's pretty good stuff."
