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6-footers bring hope to Methuen

Thursday, December, 20 By Alan Siegel
Staff writer

In seventh grade, Rashidat Agboola shot up like a beanstalk. It came suddenly, she said. By the end of the school year, she was 5-foot-11.

Shocked at first, Agboola wasn't sure what to do. She figured out quickly.

"I wanted to put it all in basketball," she said, "to make it a positive."

It made sense. Agboola looked the part. She was tall, fast and athletic.

At the time, Methuen coach Karen McLaughlin watched with wide eyes.

"I saw her play on the seventh grade 'B' team," she said. "She had a lot of raw talent that needed to be developed." Agboola, like the Rangers, is still growing today; maybe not in height, but in stature. With Agboola | now a 6-foot sophomore | and 6-foot senior Lea Freeman starting in the frontcourt, the program appears to be on the upswing.

"We're not looked at as a great team," said Agboola, who averaged 9.2 points per game last season. "We want to be looked at as a great team."

A good showing in the Greater Lawrence Holiday Festival will go a long way toward that goal. Methuen (2-1) will open the tourney against reigning Division 1 Eastern Massachusetts champion Central Catholic Sunday at 6 p.m. Potential match-ups with Merrimack Valley Conference powers Andover and Lowell loom large.

Lowell is preseason No. 1 in Eastern Mass. with Central fourth and Andover fifth. Methuen battled Lowell to the end before falling, 42-29, Tuesday.

In previous years, Freeman admitted, there was a feeling of helplessness when those games rolled around.

"It was so frustrating," said Freeman, the MVC Small MVP in volleyball this fall. "You felt like you couldn't compete." The mind-set may is changing, but Agboola remembers a time when she wasn't interested in competing at all.

As the youngest of four children (Tunde, the next oldest, is a sophomore walk-on basketball player at Boston University), Rashidat's siblings sheltered her.

Then, she began to grow. Then, she said, "They started telling me to play basketball."

Tunde (20), Andrea (23) and Walter (26), soon stopped taking it easy on her.

Still, they're a bit taken aback at their little sister's progress.

"They're shocked," Agboola said with a smile. "But they like it."

Joining forces

Two years apart in age, the two post players faced off during scrimmages while the younger Agboola was still in middle school. It wasn't exactly a fierce rivalry, but it took a while before they warmed up to each other. As an eighth grader, Agboola shadowed Freeman for a day at the high school.

Thus began their friendship.

When Freeman was honored at the volleyball banquet last month, Agboola, a teammate, delivered the speech. "She said she looked up to me," Freeman said. This winter, however, Agboola and Freeman are on the same level.

Together, they hope to elevate the once-powerful Rangers, who last season qualified for the state tournament last for the first time since 2000-01.

The duo isn't dominant in the post yet, but their gracefulness is noticeable, McLaughlin said.

"They carry their height well," said. "They could be models."

After the graduation of Eagle-Tribune All-Star and leading scorer Anna Aguirre (18.3 ppg), Freeman is Methuen's elder statesman. She admits that she's still getting used to the role.

"It's interesting," said Freeman, who averaged 7.6 points a game last season and hopes to play volleyball at Merrimack College or Assumption. "I always used to be the person being guided."

The desire to lead | and improve | can be found in both Freeman and Agboola.

On several occasions, McLaughlin has found Agboola at Latitude Sports Club, working on her game alone.

It's still unclear whether the Rangers can stack up with the MVC powerhouses this winter, but Agboola figures they might as well try. She hopes the kind of growth spurt she hit in seventh grade hits the program soon.

"I get excited," she said, "thinking of the future."