Considering her mother is a Spanish teacher, Riley Childress knows exactly what this means.

The Warren Area High School junior point guard was exactly that on Friday night, and the Dragons won twice over the weekend to improve to 9-1. She shot 55 percent from 3-point land and 42 percent from “2,” finishing with a career-high 32 points, Friday at Moniteau. She had another 16 on Saturday and Warren shut out Meadville 30-0 in the second half.

While 32 is a monster number for a player averaging 15 or so points a game, you’re only surprised if you’re not paying enough attention. Childress has been doing this type of thing for years — points, assists, steals, free throws. Of course, she is incredibly fast, so if you blinked, it’s understandable.

“Riley is gamer,” said her head coach Lisa LaVan. “She has grown so much from last year. She does a great job pushing the tempo for the team as our point guard. She is a great shooter, but I truly believe her greatest quality is her ability to see the floor. Her defense is also fun to watch. She has matured a lot. She needs to continue in that maturity and keep working hard every day.”

Times Observer File Photo by Matt Spielman Warren’s Riley Childress scored a career-high 32 points against Moniteau on Friday night.

If COVID restrictions can’t shut down the Dragons, Childress will keep being tough to stop.

“Growing up, she was always very active,” said her mom, Stacy. “She loved being challenged; everything she did was a competition. Both her and (her sister) Taylor spent a lot of time with (her father) ‘Red’ and I. Since neither of us have family here, we were together all the time. We spent countless hours especially on our summers off, biking, on the trampoline, fishing, hiking, playing all kinds of sports. I coached every sport her and her sister played, so most of the time she played with the older kids, if we were allowed.

“I started coaching her when she was 3 in soccer,” Stacy added. “I never even played soccer so I had to do some research. Riley played travel soccer, basketball and softball. We were very busy and we covered a lot of miles. There were weekends when we had a soccer tourney, softball tourney and basketball tourney all at once. She would change uniforms in the car, eat in the car, study in the car, sleep in the car.”

Fun times. Seriously. Fun.

“My dad doesn’t know much about basketball, but he is a huge supporter and always is doing anything he can to help me be the best I can be,” said Riley. “My mom is the best. She spends all her summer driving hours to AAU tournaments and spends a lot of time with me working on different things. They have had a great influence; some parents are so hard on their children (that) their children don’t enjoy playing sports anymore and I’m so thankful mine are not like that.”

That feeling of support has helped Riley blossom.

“Red and I never focused on goals, points, hits; we focused on “did you have fun, did you try your hardest, did you make good passes, how many assists, steals,?” Stacy said. “We knew the points were the easy part for her so we focused on being on a team, looking for the open person, pass the ball forward. Coaching her has been so rewarding. She understands the game because it was important for me to get her to understand the ‘why if I do this, the defense will do this. If I don’t set a good screen or play good defense, this, this, and this breaks down.'”

“Red and I always thought she would be a phenomenal soccer player, but going into seventh grade, I think, she decided on focusing on one sport,” said Stacy. “So we built a court at our house and started working. She used to play in any 3-on-3 tourneys she could find. Always had to play up because her teammates were older (including her sister). She started playing for Jamestown Elite when she was in third grade. I was coaching the team and we had fifth- and sixth-graders on it, so when we went to tourneys and we had to play in the sixth-grade division, she was so tiny out there but she never backed down. There were tears once in a while and sometimes games got a little rough and I would make her sit out. When she was in eighth grade, I started my own AAU Team NYPA Select, and she played for two years. Then we both decided that she needed to leave the comfort zone of mom coaching (I actually wanted to stop coaching her the year before, but she wanted one more year). I just felt she needed pushed by other players and coaches. I loved coaching her most of the time. At practice, all the kids would stand in line and listen to coach, so when it was their turn they were ready … She did cartwheels. It drove me crazy, but when it was her turn, she did it perfect … and then did a cartwheel. She hated practice. I always did an hour of skills before we did any scrimmaging. All she wanted to do was play. She did spend some time in the car at softball practice and at the end of the bench in basketball once in a while. I needed her to understand that during practices and games, I was coach, not mom. She wanted to play so bad that she quickly learned mom wasn’t playing around.

“She now plays AAU for the Erie Saints and Erie Wave,” Stacy added. “She was so desperate to play all summer, we drove to Erie almost every day for practice and a couple days we stayed all day for two practices, then we would head to Jamestown to meet with her trainer, Maceo Wofford. We sat down with her in March and told her that with COVID ‘you’re not going to be able to get to the gym, so how are you going to continue to workout?’ She started doing dribble workouts on YouTube in the garage, she’s worked with Maceo since April, and has gotten much stronger.”

If Childress has been on the move for as long as she can remember; she’s done it with Emma Ruhlman, coach LaVan’s oldest daughter, and Riley’s junior teammate.

“It’s been a blast,” said Childress of Ruhlman, Teagan Paris, Kelsey Stuart, etc. “We all push each other to be better and I’m so glad we got to play together since we were in first and second grade. We play together so well.”

“We have gotten a lot closer over the years for sure,” said Emma. “Coming into our freshmen year, we both knew we had the opportunity to make an immediate impact and, with the help of Margo (Loutzenhiser), we did. Seeing what Riley and I were capable of doing our first few games as freshmen made me realize how important it was for us to work together, and I think we have done a very good job of that. I think some people could look at us and maybe think there’s some competition or drama between us since we’re both very good players trying to play at the next level, but honestly there never has been. We’re best friends off the court and we know our team success comes from working together and pushing each other. Teams struggle to shut both of us down, so any night they can try and shut me down and she goes off or vice versa; they shut her down and I go off.”

The next level, for sure.

“When she was little, she always said she was going to college to play basketball on TV,” said Stacy.

That innocent statement has evolved into a desire to play D2 or D3 college basketball.

But she’s only a high school junior, and is evolving as a person.

“Riley is strong-willed, hard-nosed and loves a challenge,” said Stacy. “She works hard in the classroom and understands that her academics are the most important. On top of all the gym time, she maintains merit honor roll and that’s what we are most proud of. She knows life doesn’t end when the sweat dries.”

Of all the support in her life, Childress admits she is hardest on herself, and that coach LaVan is aware, and helping her work through that.

“The day after our game at Moniteau, we played Meadville and I was expecting to play as good as I did that day and I had an off day and was very down on myself,” said Riley. “Lisa yelled at me and then it got better in the second half.

“I like how I play defense and how I am able to see the court,” Riley added. “I worked a lot over the summer on my left hand and it improved tremendously. I need to still continue to work on my left hand and staying positive through the whole game, even if I’m not playing the best.”

The goals continue to be to win the District 10 title, and Riley knows that everyone needs to play their role … and enjoy the journey.

“Our relationship has a good balance of seriousness,” said Ruhlman. “We know what to say to each other and we keep each other level-headed in the game. If one of us is not playing our best and we go to the locker room at halftime, a quick, simple pep talk gets our heads back. We keep each other’s attitudes in check and we make sure we’re trying our best to lead the team.”

Now, just because Riley does everything all out, doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her share of funny moments.

“Riley and I have a lot of funny stories together,” said Emma, “but one of my faves is after winning the D10 game, we were so excited and I ran over to Riley to hug her and she goes ‘I think I just peed a little.'”

“I’m very lucky to play with her,” said Emma.