Challenge is Brown's middle name

Basketball game outcomes, like most sports, are acknowledged as the team scoring the most wins. While obviously undeniable, it's also true the team working the hardest to prevent points stands a fine chance of nabbing a victory.

The latter is offered because shutting off scoring is the domain of Chelsea Brown, now a Pioneer High graduate and West Valley Basketball Club (WVBC) member who will be attending prestigious Wellesley College in Massachusetts and playing basketball come the fall

The 5-foot-8 talent exudes versatility but is especially skilled and determined at the defensive end. To Brown, "it's never been about scoring points."

As WVBC Coach Bob Bramlett extolled, "During last season, Chelsea was assigned the best scorer on every team we played and showed up big on more than one occasion. We upset a very strong team out of the Northwest in no small part due to her shutting down their best player who was being recruited on a high level. It was not the first time."

He added, "Chelsea epitomizes steadfast commitment, the desire to improve and toughness, toughness, toughness."

Add competitiveness.

"I always liked basketball," Brown noted, after taking up the sport in sixth grade. That 'like' soon blossomed into 'love' despite excursions into track and lacrosse but "playing those sports was kind of hard because I kept thinking about basketball."

That degree of an attachment to roundball actually caused some worry for her parents because Brown was adamant that any college she would be attending would involve playing basketball. As she succinctly put it, "I couldn't imagine stopping playing."

Asked why she so welcomes competing, Brown offered, "part of it is because I have a twin sister and I want to be better. I don't want to be the 'she's not as good one.'"

Why Wellesley came about is also tied into her love of competition because "it was the most challenging academically."

Naturally.

As for basketball, Brown recited "a lot of energy, getting rebounds and defense" as the elements she brings to her teams.

"I always saw defending as a challenge. It didn't matter how good [my opponents] were, my job was to stop people from scoring."

With West Valley, she was most often used as a frontcourter "because of my defense. I don't have a lot of height but I'm faster than most bigger players. I let them think they're open for a pass but then I'd step in front and make the steal. We played fast-paced because of our size disadvantage."

Here's Bramlett again: "We used Chelsea as a four during the summer because she was tough enough to compete at the basket for rebounds and gave us favorable match-ups against bigger teams due to her ability to shoot the three and score of the dribble. She was a guard cloaked in a power forward's body."

Brown recalled her best basketball moment as happening very early on in her initiation into hoops -- in the sixth grade. "I never played the sport and then we won the championship. I had never felt that before."

She will be majoring in computer science at Wellesley. Pity the poor virus or malware that attempts to infiltrate and mess with her progress.