SPEEDING UP THE MATURATION PROCESS

Winning a championship is not always a necessity to earn coach of the year honors. Sometimes just getting there is reason enough.

Alexis Barile didn't lead the Fontana Summit girls basketball team to a title, but she coached a young team without seniors to the CIF-SS Division 3AA championship game.

Story continues below

Alexis Barile

Summit won 29 games and blew through the 3AA playoffs, losing to Los Angeles Marlborough in the title game, 48-35. It fielded a talented roster studded with travel-ball participants but also without collective playoff experience.

When the season started, Barile constantly had to remind her team what CIF stood for. When it ended, she saw a team not content with falling just short.

"My biggest concern at the beginning was, 'Are we going to be focused enough to meet up with our talent level?' " Barile said. " 'What can I do to mature them faster, that way their talent didn't go to waste?' "

'The daughter of a successful high school football coach Earl Graves, Barile put her team through rigid weight-lifting sessions. She ensured each player wore the correct socks or uniform, even during practices. She became a stickler on the basketball court in order to hasten the learning curve.

"I was almost militant about the little things," said Barile, formerly Alexis Onishi. "I think it paid off in the end on the big things. I never gave them a break, I never gave them an excuse."