The 2020-21 season was disruptive for the American Heritage-Delray girls basketball program.
Like every team around the state, the Stallions coped with the coronavirus pandemic. Additionally, the team was caught in a controversy surrounding players’ decision to wear Black Lives Matter shirts during pregame warmups.
Despite that, sophomore forward Alancia Ramsey helped lead the program to its deepest playoff run in school history while averaging a double-double in each game. She is the Sun Sentinel’s Palm Beach County Class 5A-1A player of the year.
“We still fought through all the negativity in our school,” Ramsey said. “The Black Lives Matter [protest], the COVID [pandemic], all that. … We missed games, important games that we wanted to play, and it just messed up everything.”
Heritage’s 6-foot-1 forward was a premier force in Palm Beach County, finishing the season with 10 double-doubles. Some of her best games came in games against top-tier opponents. She scored 19 points and had a season-high 22 rebounds in a two-point loss to eventual state champion Miami Country Day. Against King’s Academy, she had 18 points and 14 rebounds.
“She’s grown tremendously,” American Heritage-Delray coach Brett Studley said. “She came in freshman year and obviously she’s very talented, but from freshman year to now, you saw her take that athleticism and raw ability and really hone it. Her feet have gotten better, her shot has gotten better, she finishes at a high rate.”
In the postseason, Ramsey averaged 18 points and 12.7 rebounds per game, helping spur the Stallions on to the program’s first trip to Lakeland for the state semifinals.
“It was a big accomplishment to be the first one in history,” Ramsey said.
Ramsey finished her sophomore year averaging 16.5 points and 10.6 rebounds per game, and she thinks her game will improve in her final two years of high school basketball.
“[My ceiling] can be really big,” Ramsey said. “I can start dunking soon.”
