And a pure passer can transform herself into a bonafide three-point shooter.

That’s the lesson, at least, to be drawn from the Three-Point Shootout at the Powerade Jam Fest here on Monday. The competition was won by a point-guard turned combo guard from Vancouver, Wash. Ashley Corral started her career at Prairie High School as a distributor and ended it as its all-time leading scorer.

Alicia Manning tees up under the watchful
eye of ESPN.

The evolution led to Corral beating future USC teammate Briana Gilbreath of Katy, Texas, 15-12, in the championship round. Corral led eight first-round participants with 16 points.

In preparation, Corral was to meet her high-school coach, Al Aldridge, who was to feed her ball at the five spots used in the competition.

“We were supposed to,” Corral said, “but it didn’t happen.”

Talk about pure shooting.

In fact, talk about pure shooting with Nneka Ogwumike of Cyfair, Texas. The 6-foot-2, Stanford-bound forward seriously considered signing up for the Slam Dunk Contest, but thought the better of it. So she entered the Team Ball Competition, pairing with Jrue Holiday of Compton, Calif., to beat Nikki Speed of Pasadena, Calif., and Malcom Lee of Moreno Valley, Calif., 35-15, in the final round. Ogwumike and Holiday emerged from the first round with a high score of 51.

“It’s all mental,” said Ogwumike, the Gatorade National Player of the Year. “Everyone is just watching you. But we’re all here for a reason – we all can score. It’s just staying calm, not worrying about anything.”

Nneka Ogwumike called the shootout “all
mental.”

With Larry Drew II of Los Angeles taking the Three-Point Shootout for the boys, and Demar DeRozan of Compton, Calif., claiming the dunk contest, the West swept all the Jam Fest events, leading some to wonder if a trend had been started.

“It’s foreshadowing something, I do have to say,” Ogwumike said.

If not for Corral’s victory in the shootout, the upset of the night would have been a high-school basketball player uttering the word “foreshadowing.”

After all, it was just a year ago that Corral was undergoing the first of two surgeries to repair ligaments in her ankles that her surgeon said had been damaged since the ninth grade. The surgeries restored Corral’s explosiveness off the dribble and balance to her shot. The recovery period equally was a godsend.

“I couldn’t run at all,” Corral noted. “All I could do was shoot.”

The biggest change in her shot, Corral said, was her ability to land on and push off both feet. “I used to come down,” she said, “on whatever foot felt good that day.”

A big difference indeed. That’s what four years, hard work and a little bad luck turned good can do.

Briana Gilbreath finished a close second in the Three-Point Shootout.

Three-Point Shootout
First Round
Ashley Corral, Vancouver, Wash., 16
*Briana Gilbreath, Katy, Texas, 11
Samantha Prahalis, Dix Hills, N.Y., 11
Shekinna Stricklen, Morrilton, Ark., 9
Jasmine Dixon, Long Beach, Calif., 6
She’la White, Portsmouth, Va., 6
Destini Hughes, Fort Worth, Texas, 5
Brooklyn Pope, Fort Worth, Texas, 0
Final Round
Corral, 15
Gilbreath, 12

Team Ball Competition
First Round
Nneka Ogwumike, Cyfair, Texas, and Jrue Holiday, Compton, Calif., 51
Nikki Speed, Pasadena, Calif., and Malcom Lee, Moreno Valley, Calif., 47
Elena Delle Donne, Greenville, Del., and Kemba Walker, Bronx, N.Y., 46
Lynetta Kizer, Woodbridge, Va., and Tyler Zeller, Washington, Ind., 34
Amber Gray, West Chester, Ohio, and Greg Monroe, Gretna, La., 26
Alicia Manning, Woodstock, Ga., and Chris Singleton, Dunwoody, Ga., 25
Final Round
Ogwumike and Holiday, 35
Speed and Lee, 15

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Glenn Nelson is the founder and publisher of HoopGurlz.com. He is a member of the McDonald's All-American Selection Committee and SportsShooter.com (Click for Porfolio), Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Photoshop Professionals, National Press Photographers Association, Online News Association, Society of Professional Journalists and U.S. Basketball Writers Association. Glenn also founded and coached the Dragons and Northwest HoopGurlz select girl's basketball teams and previously was the editor-in-chief at Scout.com and a longtime, national-award-winning basketball columnist and writer for The Seattle Times. His work has appeared in several books and national magazines. He is co-author of "Rising Stars: The Ten Best Players in the NBA" (Rosen Publishing, 2002). For more on Glenn's World, click here. Glenn can be reached at glenn@hoopgurlz.com.