VIRGINIA BEACH — Freshmen like Micah Ojo aren’t supposed to do what she did on her way to All-Tidewater Girls Basketball Player of the Year honors, capping a 2023-24 season when she led Princess Anne to a record 14th state championship.
To be sure, there was no question about her potential to become one of the best ever in a storied Princess Anne program that needed just 21 years to win its first 13 state titles. ESPNW listed her as one of the top 25 freshmen in the country even before she donned Cavaliers red, white and blue for the first time.
But even gifted players are often served a slice of humble pie or two on their first exposure to varsity basketball. That could have happened when the Cavaliers played Menchville and VCU signee Cyriah Griffin in a highly anticipated matchup in December or in the Class 5 state championship game against James River and APP Carolina-bound five-star Lanie Grant.
It didn’t. Griffin and Grant were good in those games, but Ojo was better, displaying poise and efficiency beyond her years in leading the Cavaliers (25-2) to victories.
Ojo gives Princess Anne eight of the past 10 All-Tidewater Girls Basketball Players of the Year and ends a two-year streak of Peninsula players winning the award.
“I felt a little bit nervous, having a reputation to live up to, but at the end of the day, I just tried to play my game,” Ojo said of living up to the high expectations.
Along with her natural talent, Ojo, a 6-foot-1 wing, is likely more comfortable in pressure situations because of her insistence on learning to play all five positions.
Ojo scored 18.8 points per game for the season — to go with averages of 10.9 rebounds, 4.4 steals, 4.2 blocks and 3.6 assists — but could almost have doubled her points if she had wished. Her versatile performances in the aforementioned big games are evidence.
She had 32 points and 16 rebounds in the 68-52 win over then-No. 1 Menchville in the Boo Williams Holiday Invitational. Princess Anne led by just four points at halftime, but Ojo took over in the second half of a win that cemented the top spot for the Cavaliers in the 757Teamz Top 15.
“I told her, ‘They’re going to come at you because you’re young and they think you don’t know what you’re doing your first time on the big stage,'” Princess Anne coach Darnell Dozier said. “But we went to her exclusively in the fourth quarter when it was still close.
“When she gets inside, like against Menchville, she can play. And in the state championship game, she was hitting 3s and firing it from everywhere.”
Ojo finished with 31 points, seven rebounds, five assists and four blocks in the 80-70 win over James River for the state championship. It sometimes felt like she played all five positions — “I like it when a player tells me where they can be most effective,” Dozier said — and her imprint was everywhere.
Grant was, as always, stellar for James River, scoring 40 points against Princess Anne. But she did so on 12-of-29 shooting and was just 1 of 5 from the field in the final eight minutes of a game tied at 58 after three quarters.
Ojo was an efficient 12 of 16 from the field, but her assertiveness and poise in the fourth quarter is perhaps the biggest reason she overtook Grant to earn Class 5 State Player of the Year recognition. With the score tied at 60, she gave the Cavaliers the lead for good with a 3-pointer, then assisted a basket and hit another 3 as the Cavaliers led 68-62.
Her subsequent blocked shot on a catch-up from behind foiled a James River breakaway. Her dive to the floor for a tie-up earned a pivotal possession for the Cavaliers, whom she hopes to lead to four state titles.
“In that kind of game, I knew I had to play my best game of the season and leave it all on the court,” Ojo said. “I was happy to make such a big impact on the game and so happy to pull out the win.”
Marty O’Brien, mjobrien@dailypress.com
All-Tidewater Girls Basketball Players of the Year (since 1994)
2024: Micah Ojo, Princess Anne
2023: Kennedy Harris, Hampton
2022: Amari Smith, Menchville
2021: Not given in pandemic-shortened season
2020: Aziaha James, Princess Anne
2019: Aziaha James, Princess Anne
2018: Brianna Jackson, Princess Anne
2017: Xaria Wiggins, Princess Anne
2016: Gadiva Hubbard, Princess Anne
2015: Gadiva Hubbard, Princess Anne
2014: Gadiva Hubbard, Princess Anne
2013: Feyonda Fitzgerald, Lake Taylor
2012: Galaisha Goodhope, Princess Anne
2011: Elizabeth Williams, Princess Anne
2010: Elizabeth Williams, Princess Anne
2009: Sugar Rodgers, King’s Fork
2008: She’la White, Norfolk Collegiate
2007: Kim Rodgers, Princess Anne
2006: Kim Rodgers, Princess Anne
2005: Jazzmin Walters, Lake Taylor
2004: Khadijah Whittington, Wilson
2003: Tiffany Green, Indian River
2002: Ashley Mason, Princess Anne
2001: Cynthia Jordan, Deep Creek
2000: Sharese Grant, Princess Anne
1999: Okeisha Howard, Princess Anne
1998: Okeisha Howard, Princess Anne
1997: Raquita Washington, Booker T. Washington
1996: Misty Colebank, Salem
1995: Misty Colebank, Salem
1994: Angela Carter, Oscar Smith
