If All-Conference honors were awarded solely based on a player’s season-long production on the court, the two players highlighted below would no doubt be on the first and second team this year.  That said, the following two players have been honorably mentioned by the coaches of Conference 13 this year. For Falls Church girls basketball, these two juniors have helped to raise a program from a deep abyss; so much so to celebrate four more victories in their three seasons together than the program has tasted in the five seasons preceding their dual freshman year on Varsity. Together, these two have accumulated nearly 900 points over the past two season, and over 1,100 points since they first emerged together at Lady Jaguar tryouts three years ago:

Amber Ecelbarger has scored more career Varsity points through her junior season than any previous Lady Jaguar in 20 years. She is the first Falls Church Girls Basketball player since 1995 to repeat 250-point seasons as a sophomore and a junior, and only the third player in Conference 13 to score more than 500 points accumulated through her second regular season of this two-year-old conference. She has played in every single game since starting her first game as a 14-year-old freshman, has started all but two of them, and -- most remarkably -- has scored in all 67 games played at this point of her high school career.

Amber entered this season as the team’s co-captain and the only returning routine starter from the previous year due to an injury to Leann Loch. Surrounded by inexperience – a discovery made by most opposing teams who focused their defense on her – she still excelled on the court, pouring in over 12 points per game and netting more points than all but four girls in the 110-player Conference. She was consistent and reliable, scoring fewer than 9 points in a game just four times the entire season and no less than 5 points in any game. She had consecutive 20+-point games and 16 games in double-digits.

No single player in Conference 13 contributed more to her team’s offense than did Amber this season at Falls Church HS. In points and assists, she has had a hand in exactly 50% of her team’s point production. Needed on the floor at all times to break presses and direct the offense, Amber sat down for two minutes the entire season -- after she fouled out of a game in the closing minutes. As the workhorse of her team, she has been indispensable to the continued improvement of the Lady Jaguars.

Leann Loch’s value to the team can be summed up by the team’s record when she was injured or was limited to a single half of court time (0-5) versus the team’s record when Leann was healthy and played more than a half (7-11). The junior forward and co-captain repeated as the fourth highest-scoring post player in the conference this season, averaging over 9 points per game to place her in the top 10% of the conference in scoring. She had double-digit games in 9 of her 19 games this season, including a career-high 19 points in her final regular season game this year. As a forward, Leann also tallied an impressive number of assists, both to fellow post players as well as kicking out open looks to guards.

Leann was equally a dominant defensive player with more than 140 rebounds this season, including four “double-doubles” in points and rebounds. Her 7 rebounds per game most certainly ranks her within the top five players of the conference. She was the “Shot Block Queen” of any Falls Church game this year, swatting away potential baskets to rob opponents of likely points.

With over 400 points scored through her junior season of her Varsity career, Leann Loch is rapidly rising as one of the highest scoring Lady Jaguar forwards of the current century. She will return to the Jaguars next season as one of the top two scoring forwards of Conference 13.