Lady Vol signee Spani in final 14 for U19 world championship team

USA Basketball newcomer Taber Spani is fitting in quickly.

The Tennessee Lady Vols freshman-to-be made the cut of 14 finalists after participating in three days of trials in Colorado Springs, Colo., for the U19 World Championship U.S. women's team.

Spani and the other finalists will reconvene on July 9 for training and the eventual 12-player squad will be finalist prior to the team's departure for the tournament, July 23-Aug. 2 in Bangkok, Thailand.

"I said this when I came in, I just feel so blessed and honored,'' Spani said, "even more so now that there is an opportunity to put on those colors and listen to your anthem and hopefully win a gold medal for the United States. I'm just so excited. I can't even put it into words."

Spani, a 6-foot-1 wing player from Lee's Summit, Mo., was one of 27 players taking part in the weekend trials. The finalists include U.S. gold medalists Kelsey Bone, Sarah Boothe, Skylar Diggins, Kelly Faris, Nnemkadi Ogwumike and Samantha Prahalis, who won gold last summer at that FIBA Americas U18 Championship.

"I thought the trials went really well, each session got better and better,'' said U.S. coach Carol Owens, the coach at Northern Illinois. "I'm excited about our team. I think our strength will be our transition game. In particular our posts I think will be very good. We have some scorers obviously. I'm excited to get them in training camp to work on our defenses and get our offenses going."

Spani's obvious strength is her outside shooting. But she doesn't think that skill alone enabled her to make the cut.

"People look for little things,'' she said. 'The scoring and rebounds stand out, but it's the little things that matter. And if I can be that encourager and communicator and that constant go-getter and lay it out on the line for all these girls, that's what I'm going to try to do."

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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