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Photos courtesy of Scott Butler.
Homewood’s Kassidy Schnoer shoots during a game against Huffman on Jan. 17.
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Photos courtesy of Scott Butler.
Homewood’s Kennedy Campbell lines up her shot.
If there’s one thing Kennedy Campbell wants you to know about her, it’s that she likes turtles.
Why?
“Because they’re cute,” she said.
Campbell added that fact about herself at the end of a pre-practice interview in late January, in which she sat alongside fellow Homewood High School senior Kassidy Schnoer.
The two basketball players can look up on the wall in the high school gymnasium and find themselves in the picture of the 2017 state championship team. The Lady Patriots won state titles in 2015 and 2017 and finished as the runners-up in 2016. Schnoer and Campbell are the final holdovers from those teams, as the only two seniors this season.
Well, except for Kevin Tubbs, who was the head coach of the 2017 group. After spending two years in Seattle, Tubbs moved back to the area and is once again the girls basketball coach at Homewood.
But there’s more to the story of Campbell and Schnoer than simply turtles. Tubbs remembers the two of them as hard-working freshmen on his last Homewood team.
“When I left, they were both freshmen on a state championship team,” he said. “They helped in practice, but they didn’t see a lot of time on the floor. So coming back and seeing how much better, how much older and how much more mature they are has been really cool.”
Now, they’re key contributors for a Homewood team that has surprised even the most optimistic supporter. Coming off a disappointing 10-18 campaign last season that ended in the first round of the area tournament, Homewood is off to an incredible start, posting a 21-2 overall record through Jan. 20.
Last year, the team took its lumps, with several underclassmen in significant roles. Those growing pains have paid off this year, with the likes of Brinley Cassell, Anna Grace Gibbons, Caidyn Cannon, Anna Harbin and others turning gained experience into positive results.
“I knew just because I had coached them in seventh and eighth grade that there was talent,” Tubbs said. “When they were eighth-graders, they won the Metro [Tournament], and that’s a big deal.”
“We got to witness them grow, and it’s been really good,” Campbell said.
Tubbs said he knew the talent was there, but with the coaching transition from Jazmine Powers — who is now at Bob Jones — back to Tubbs, he was unsure if everyone would return to the team. Fortunately, everyone stayed, and there were even a couple additions to the program.
One of those additions was Schnoer, who took last year off and just played volleyball and softball.
“Mostly, I just missed basketball,” she said. “When I heard Coach Tubbs was coming back, I enjoyed playing with him my freshman year, I wanted to come back and finish my high school career.”
With the volleyball team having a successful season this past fall and making a run to the regional tournament, Schnoer missed the entire preseason program for basketball. But Tubbs said by the third day of her arrival at practice, she had asserted herself as a starter in the post.
“I was very surprised by how comfortable I was the first practice and people’s reaction to me coming back,” Schnoer said.
Campbell played sparingly as a freshman and sophomore and missed much of last season due to injury. But she said her “love for the sport” motivated her to stick with it. She is reaping the benefits of that decision this season. Campbell serves as the first player off the bench most nights, providing energy on both ends of the floor from the guard position.
“She’s a shooter,” Tubbs said. “She’s done a really good job in the press on defense. … She gets after it.”
Campbell’s style of play embodies what has been the most pleasant surprise for Tubbs this season.
“I’ve just been blown away with how hard they play,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve had a team play as hard as this team plays.”
On Jan. 14, the Lady Patriots notched their 20th win of the season, in just the 22nd game. They are only the 11th team in the program’s history to reach that milestone.
“That’s a big deal. They were shocked, because they have grown up winning. Five of those 11 have come in the last six or seven years,” Tubbs said.
Schnoer and Campbell hope to continue reaching milestones in their final season, and they both agree that the team will have to maintain focus down the stretch in order to make that happen.
Homewood will begin its postseason run the first week of February, with the area tournament. Should the Lady Patriots advance, the sub-regional and regional tournaments follow.
