Entering her senior year at a new high school had Leah Russell admittedly nervous.

After attending Lake Dallas for three years and taking a brief detour in Pampa last spring, Russell set foot on the Guyer campus for the first time on the first day of school back in August and knew no one except for her younger brother Luke and his friends.

DRC/Barron Ludlum

Guyer senior Leah Russell, who was part of a playoff team at Lake Dallas last season, has led the Lady Wildcats to their first playoff berth in her first year at the school.

Russell had to make friends with her new teammates and coaches quickly, but some of her teammates’ first impression of the guard might’ve been a little skeptical.

She’s superstitious, and after the second game of the season at Whitesboro — a loss in which she scored 22 points — she had to act on her superstition and impose it on the rest of the team.

She made ’80s rock mix CDs.

“All the time [she listens to 80s rock],” said junior forward Ashley Manuel, with a smile. “I hate it. We all make fun of her about it.”

Russell made mix CDs for head coach Charla Valenzuela and associate head coach Todd Bramlett, who both enjoyed the nostalgic music taste from one of their teenaged players, but the rest of the folks in and around the coaches’ office weren’t so keen on it at first.

“We’ll all be in here listening to Poison and she knows every word, and it just cracks us up,” Valenzuela said. “Everyone in the office and the rest of the team was just like, ‘What is that stuff?’ Coach Bramlett and I just laugh because we love the stuff.”

It didn’t take long for Russell to get acclimated to her new teammates, and for her new teammates to pick up on what Russell could offer, and run with it.

At Lake Dallas, Russell was part of a winning program and a group that went three rounds deep in the playoffs last year before losing to eventual state tournament participant Frisco.

Before this season, Guyer had won four district games in its two years. It went 7-5 in District 5-4A play this year to earn its first-ever postseason berth.

The Lady Wildcats (13-18) will take on Keller Fossil Ridge (20-10) tonight at 7 p.m. at Justin Northwest.

Russell was a big part of that success and not only for her team-leading 15.1 points and three steals per game.

“Her winning experience was a nice attribute to add to our team,” Valenzuela said. “But her work ethic is tremendous, and I think that’s the biggest thing.

“At the beginning of the year, no matter how much shooting we did in practice, she’d always stay during lunch and shoot free throws. First, it was just Leah, then a couple of more joined and then a lot more. She just kept telling them they had to do extra to win. That’s just how badly she wants to win.”

Junior post Carrie Johnson, who wasn’t a part of last year’s team after playing her freshman season, said Russell’s arrival brought a whole new attitude and work ethic to the entire team.

“She didn’t say anything, she just did it,” Johnson said about the lunchtime shooting routine. “Jasmine [Badiru] and Ashley are really good friends with her and they kind of took her lead. You saw the whole team forming around her and starting to do it. We all just followed her lead.”

Russell, who was a three-year starter at Lake Dallas, said as a freshman she learned what kind of dedication it took to have a winning team from the Lady Falcons’ seniors who would stay in the gym during lunch. She said the Guyer players weren’t lazy by any means, but they just didn’t know any better.

“When you see someone leading like that, it’s easy to follow,” she said. “They didn’t know any better before. They didn’t really have any seniors to lead them and knew what it was like to win.

“I tried to be a leader. I came in here and didn’t want to be over the top on the first day. We started the season and I told everyone that, coming from a team that went pretty far in the playoffs, I know what it takes.”

The old days

Russell was a starter for the Lady Falcons for three seasons before her father was transferred to Pampa, which moved the family out to desolate West Texas, where Russell had planned to finish out her high school career and worked out all summer.

“We liked the people there,” she said. “I kind of miss the kids there but we just didn’t like the town. We came from a city environment to a little town in the middle of nowhere where everything closed at 9 p.m. We just didn’t know what to do there so we decided to move back.”

Her family had bought a house in Denton and Russell decided she would join her little brother at Guyer, at his urging, and leave her two best friends, Rachelle Franklin and Brea Terrell, a few miles down the road. The duo led Lake Dallas to a playoff berth this year after beating McKinney on Friday in a third-place playoff game in District 9-4A.

Russell said when she arrived at Guyer and met her new teammates for the first time, she immediately knew her new team was different.

“I came over here and I didn’t like it at first, but we started working out and everyone was so welcoming,” Russell said. “That’s so much different than at Lake Dallas because when new people came in there, they were shunned. People didn’t just accept people there, and coming here and immediately being accepted made it easier.”

Russell said the main thing she misses about not being at Lake Dallas in her final year is the fact that she didn’t get to finish her career with Franklin and Terrell, with whom she started with since their freshman year.

“I talk to them every day,” Russell said. “I [root] for Brea and Rachelle because they’re my best friends. I’d love to play with them this year. They’re really good and that showed when we played them.”

The teams met on Nov. 19, a game that Russell said “meant the most” to her this season, and the Lady Falcons won 47-35. Franklin and Terrell combined to score 26 points and Russell finished with six.

“That was a hard game for me because I had to play against my best friends,” Russell said. “It was very emotional. We were hugging after the game and it was hard being a senior and going to school with them for three years and then just leaving.”

Well worth it

On Feb. 5, Russell got what she’d been wanting since deciding to go to Guyer and leaving all of her friends behind — vindication.

Before going off and playing in college (she’s getting looks from Tarleton State, Hardin-Simmons, McMurry and Cisco Junior College, among others), Russell wanted to make the playoffs with her new team and her new friends.

The Lady Wildcats beat co-district leader Wichita Falls on that night, which was senior night, to secure the school’s first playoff berth in history, and Russell immediately knew she was in the right place.

“That was icing on the cake,” Russell said. “That was the best moment of my whole high school career. I knew at that point I’d done the right thing, just seeing all my coaches’ and teammates’ faces.

“I felt like they were really appreciative of going to the playoffs. At Lake Dallas, going to the playoffs meant nothing. It’s just what we were supposed to do. When we [Guyer] won, everyone was just so excited and that really got to me. I knew I’d made the right decision.”

Russell said she almost feels as if she was meant to come to an emerging program and put it over the top.

“I look at it like everything happens for a reason, and I feel like I came to Guyer for a reason,” she said. “Not only for my family, but like I came here to be a leader for this team. I love these girls and I know they love me too.

“No matter what, I think I would’ve ended up here even if we hadn’t moved to Pampa. We’d already bought a house in Denton, and I just feel like, no matter what, I would’ve ended up here like it’s where I was supposed to be.”

Johnson said this year’s edition of the Lady Wildcats is undeniably better than the previous years’ squads, but Russell is probably the main factor in the drastic improvement this season.

“She’s definitely one of our better players,” Johnson said. “Last year, we were really young and didn’t have anyone that knew how to lead us. Now, with Leah having that experience and coming in, I think she’s led us well and helped us get here. I don’t think we’d have the power to do this without her.”

It’s funny what winning can do for a team’s cohesiveness, even if it means being subjected to Guns N’ Roses, Journey, ZZ Top, Kiss or Madonna.

“They probably thought I was crazy at first,” Russell said. “Now everyone listens to it. I’ll put it on in the locker room and ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ comes on and everyone’s singing all the words so it’s kind of cool because everyone jams out to it now.”

ADAM BOEDEKER can be reached at 940-566-6872. His e-mail address is aboedeker@dentonrc.com .