Jardine’s A Diamond In The Rock

Going against the norm, Newfoundland’s Hannah Jardine (6’1”, G, O’Donel, 2013) is excelling in a part of the country simply not known for being a basketball prowerhouse. However, she should not be overlooked, especially when one considers that despite her environment, her hard work and dedication towards constantly improving is starting to pay dividends. So much so, that she played a vital role on the 2011 Cadette National team that represented her country en route to a FIBA Americas Bronze medal.

Jardine attends O’Donel High School in the city of Mount Pearl, Newfoundland. Regardless of being from a city that only claims a population of just under 25 thousand people, Jardine led the O’Donel Patriots to the capturing of the 2011 4A provincial high school title. Doing so by scoring 38 points in the semi-final and 29 more in the finals.

With her solid 6’1″ frame this 2-Guard is not afraid to carry the ball up court, drive, knock down a mid-range jumper, or bang it up inside the paint while jockeying for rebounds.

In the summer of 2010, with Team Newfoundland at the U15 Canadian Nationals, she took full advantage to show her stuff against most of the top talent Canada had to offer. She averaged 17.0 points per game and led the tournament with 14.2 rebounds per game. In August 2011, with the U17 Team Newfoundland squad, 16 year old Jardine would go on to rack up a 6 game tournament average of 19.2 points, 12.3 rebounds all while shooting 91.9% from the charity stripe resutling in her double-doubling in all but one game in the tournament. Not bad especially when considering she put up 20(pts) and 8(rebs against the tournament’s Bronze medalists and 16(pts) and 10(rebs) against the Silver medalists. This performance went on to earn her a 2nd Team All-Star nod while on a team that finished 8th out of 10 teams.

Despite the success found during the Canadian Nationals, it was the opportunity to wear the Canadian jersey playing with the Cadettes that has really appealed to her. About her time at the FIBA Americas U16 Championships in Mexico, Jardine says that “Playing with the Cadette team this past summer was a new and exciting experience for me. I had never played on a team with players of such high skill level.” Her Cadette Coach, Carly Clarke all too pleased to welcome Jardine into the fold. “Hannah has a tremendous work ethic and has really developed her perimeter skills”, Clarke recalled. “She was able to take what she learned at the [2010] tryout and improved all last year and subsequently earned a prominent role with us this summer.” The prominent role Coach Clarke referred to, resulted in lots of playing time for the East coast baller, who averaged 24.2 minutes over the 5 games and the third leading scorer on her team. “My role was to support bringing the ball up the floor, help run the offensive set which included getting the ball into the post”, Jardine said when asked what was asked of her, “I looked for shooting opportunities from the outside or penetration to the middle for pull up jumpers or kick to other players.”

While Jardine was doing what it took to get it done on the offensive side of things, defensively she was no slouch either. She was often assigned to tough defensive assignments especially as the tournament wore on. “She really committed herself to her role and this showed most during our final game vs Puerto Rico”, recalls Coach Clarke. “She took on their leading scoring and limited her to 6 points on the game, when she had scored 20+ on us when we saw them earlier in the tournament.”

Even with the busy summer that was, Jardine is looking to maintain the momentum of the growth of her game as she is back to the school routine. She trains 2 to 3 times a week at a High Performance training center under the direction of a strength/conditioning specialist and that is only for starters. “During the school season I practice three times a week with my school team but also do individual sessions on my own to work on different parts of my game I wish to improve.” All of that is for the chance to again, represent her country internationally next summer. “This coming year is a big one for me. I am training very hard and my goal is to make the National Cadette team again and compete for Canada in the U17 World Championships to be held in August 2012, in the Netherlands.” Regarding that goal, Coach Clarke offers the following praise, and areas she can use to ensure further success, “She is a solid shooter, who is also strong at attacking the rim. In order to crack the roster next year she will need to continue to improve her ball handling and passing under pressure, as well as expand her shooting range. She also has a very high basketball IQ, we would love her to become more vocal on the floor and take on a larger leadership role.”

Jardine has been a three time Premier’s Athletic Award winner, an honour given to the province’s elite athletes which includes grant money to cover training costs, and her future certainly looks bright. Although the recruiting process for her is still in its infancy, she has heard from a number of NCAA and Canadian schools, but will be giving them more consideration as time goes on. Jardine explained, “I am starting grade 11 in September so it is early on in the process.” But, Jardine puts her post secondary aspirations into sensible perspective by mentioning, “Academically I maintain a high overall average so a University that offers a strong program in my area of interest will be important. Athletically it would be great if I could play for a basketball program where I will continue to improve my skills/game and on a team that is very competitive in their conference.”