ATHLETES OF THE WEEK: KATIE DOUGHERTY

Katie Dougherty

School: Cape Central

Sport: Basketball

Coach: Darrick Smith

Weekly Report: Smith challenged Dougherty at the beginning of the season and the 6-foot junior certainly stepped up to the plate in the first week of the season. With two of Central's key figures Heather Jenkins and Dionna Webb suffering from injuries, Dougherty and others picked up the slack to lead the Lady Tigers to a 3-0 start and a championship in the Oakville Invitational round-robin tournament. In her first three games (Central is now 3-1), Dougherty averaged 15 points, five steals and eight rebounds and shot 55 percent from the floor. She scored 19 points in the season opener, then followed up with back-to-back 13-point games.

Coach's comments: "I had one-on-one talks with each of my players before the season," Smith said. "And my expectations for her was for her to double all her stats for last year and in the first week she did that. And that needs to continue. I thought she stepped up with all the injuries last week and she played especially well defensively with all those steals. We've changed her role a bit this year and brought her outside some and she has adjusted well. We're going to ask her to handle the ball more. She worked on her outside game a lot over the summer and she is just more confident that she was last year."