Shelby Hembera a diamond in a rough season for Cedar Valley Christian

 CEDAR RAPIDS -- The season-long scoring spree hasn't inflated her ego.The losing hasn't damaged her. Hasn't even discouraged her."I don't really get too wrapped up with either of them," said Cedar Valley Christian junior Shelby Hembera. "I'm just having a good time playing basketball with my teammates."Out of sheer necessity, the slender 6-footer has been on statistical overdrive all season. Hembera leads the state in scoring (33.1 points per game) and rebounds (16.0 boards per contest).But there's a catch. The rest of the team has accumulated only 84 points in 21 games, and the Huskies are 1-20 as they prepare for Thursday's Class 1A regional opener at Sigourney."Shelby hasn't gotten a lot of help offensively, so she's seeing every defense imaginable," said Huskies Coach Craig Foote. "She's being double- and triple-teamed all game, every game, and she's putting up those kind of numbers."Hembera's arrival at Cedar Valley Christian coincided with the small, private school's entrance into state-sanctioned athletics in the fall of 2011.The girls basketball squads have been small, and team success has been limited. The Huskies have posted records of 4-18, 4-17 and now 1-20.Hembera has been the pillar from the beginning. She averaged 16.0 points per game as a freshman, then 22.0 per contest as a sophomore. Last year, the Huskies won their first postseason game, at Lone Tree.Over the summer, there was speculation that Cedar Valley would not have enough girls to field a team. Hembera played dual summer roles, playing with her Cedar Valley teammates, as well as with Cedar Rapids Kennedy.A Hiawatha resident, Hembera would have been eligible to play for Kennedy this season had CVCS been unable to field a squad."The Kennedy girls were super nice, very inviting toward me," Hembera said.Still, though Kennedy has been in the Class 5A top 10 most of the season -- and she would have enhanced the Cougars nicely -- she feels she is where she belongs."I love my coach, and I love my teammates," she said. "This is home."The Huskies' fortunes and Hembera's prolificity have been particularly divergent this year.* Five times this season, she has scored 40-plus points, including a career-high 44. Twice, she has scored all of her team's points.* Her 696 points this season ranks 13th in the state all-time, with at least one game to play.* Her 291 free-throw attempts is tied for the most in a season in state history. Her 627 field-goal attempts ranks No. 2. Her 175 made free throws is No. 5.* In the Huskies' win, Saturday against Waterloo Christian, she posted 41 points and 25 rebounds."Sometimes, she forces the issue a little, but she finds a way to score," said Alburnett Coach Seth Engelken, whose team beat the Huskies, 61-44, Jan. 21 despite 40 points from Hembera. "She knows everybody is going to be honed in on her defensively, but she finds a way to get the ball and do something with it."She's definitely one of the top three players we've seen this year. Definitely an all-stater."Hembera is generally the Huskies' primary ball handler against the press. She brings the ball upcourt, gets it to a teammate, then hustles to get open again."The middle is always pretty much closed down for her," Foote said. "She has had to work on her mid-range jumper, out to 15 or 17 feet."She has a nice step-back move, an up-and-under, a spin move. She has really expanded her game."Hembera has scored 1,492 points and grabbed more than 700 rebounds in her career. She has done it in front of small crowds and on losing teams. Recruiting calls have been slow to come -- she has heard from Division-II Upper Iowa and Division-III Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minn.She dearly wants to play college basketball, but has no plans to hit the elite AAU circuit this summer in a rush for a scholarship."I'm going to play this summer with my team," she said.And here lies part of the reason that she didn't flee for Kennedy: Help is on the way. And thus, and so is hope.Led by Shelby's sister, Molly Hembera, Cedar Valley's eighth-grade team was 9-2 this winter."We've got a good core of at least six players that will major contributors for us next year," Foote said. "And we've got a couple kids on the varsity, particularly (freshman) Emily Masterson, that have developed."I don't know how may games we'll win (next year), but I think we'll develop into a team that other teams won't want to play against."And that excites Hembera."I'm not trying to wish this season away, because I don't want it to end," she said. "But next year, I'm definitely looking forward to that."