Audenried sophomore Shayla Smith sets a new Public League scoring record

Shayla Smith listened when LeBron James said he didn’t want to break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time NBA scoring record at the foul line earlier this month.

Smith, a sophomore at Universal Audenried High School, had similar intentions Friday afternoon as she looked to make history of her own.

“I didn’t want it to come at the free-throw line either,” Smith said after the Rockets beat visiting Masterman, 65-29, in the quarterfinals of the Public League playoffs. “I wanted it to come at the three-point line.”

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Smith, according to the school, needed 31 points to become the fastest girl in Pub history to reach 1,000 points.

Her final basket Friday came with about 2 minutes, 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter after Smith set a screen at the top of the key for senior guard ZayAhni Neurell, who drew two defenders before passing back to Smith.

The 15-year-old, who is relatively new to basketball, powered through the paint, slipped between two defenders, and hit a leaning bank shot that gave her 32 points and a new record.

“I’m just proud of myself,” Smith said after the game. “It feels like a relief, like a weight came off my shoulders.”

University City’s Shawnetta Stewart set the previous mark, reaching 1,000 points as a sophomore in the mid-1990s in just 54 games.

Stewart, a 1996 graduate of U-City, later played at Rutgers and then had a brief stint in the WNBA.

Reached by phone earlier this week, Stewart, who won four consecutive Pub titles in high school, said Smith breaking her record would be “awesome.”

“It’s excellent to see young girls playing the game and evolving it,” said Stewart, now 44 years old.

Friday was Smith’s 49th game, her coach, Kevin Slaughter, said.

Smith started playing organized basketball in seventh grade. Now she scores about 25 points per game this season.

“She’s special,” Slaughter said. “She’s a special talent.”

Smith played pickup basketball in parks with her brothers, but never played on a team.

Football was her first love.

“I hated it,” her father, John, 46, said after the game. “She was following behind her brother. I couldn’t tell her no. She would’ve been on me every day.”

Her older brother, Sahir, now 16, played for the Northwest Raiders, so naturally, his sister did, too.

Smith, however, played on a younger team.

Her dad hoped she would quit when she was put on the offensive line and didn’t play much.

That is until her coaches saw her throw a football one day.

“She came home and said, ‘Dad, guess what? I’m the starting quarterback,’” John Smith said, laughing. “I said, ‘Get the hell out of here!’”

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She eventually won team MVP. She played until 12 years old, he said.

That’s when she started girls’ basketball at Hill Freedman World Academy, where she dominated the competition.

“I was playing outside with boys the whole time,” she said, “so I didn’t even know that girls’ basketball was a thing.”

Now, she dominates the Pub. Audenried (18-5, 7-1) will face Freire Charter next week in the semifinals at University of the Sciences.

Earlier this week, Smith was named the Pub’s MVP.

“For her to pick up [basketball] in two years,” Slaughter said, “and now she’s in 10th grade and an elite player, my goal for her is to be an All-American. I want to look up one day and see she’s top-20 in the country.”

Currently, Slaughter, now in his 10th season at Audenried, says Smith has about five or six scholarship offers. Schools such as Temple, St. Joseph’s, Drexel, Villanova, Arizona State, Howard, and Delaware State have expressed various degrees of interest.

Smith hopes Dawn Staley’s No. 1 South Carolina will take notice. But she knows it will take more work for that to happen.

“I’m still working to get better because I’m not satisfied,” she said. “I still got so much more to do and I’m nowhere near where I want to be.”