Girls hoops: Princess Anne home for the holidays

The Princess Anne High School girls basketball team has kept its bags packed during the holidays while making yearly pilgrimages to prestigious national tournaments.

This year, though, the Cavaliers will stay close to home despite offers to play in tournaments as far away as Arizona, New Jersey, Georgia, Florida and Texas.

On Monday, Princess Anne begins play in the Ronald Curry & Boo Williams Christmas Classic at the Boo Williams Sports Complex in Hampton.

“This is the first time in seven or eight years we’ll be home,” Cavaliers coach Darnell Dozier said. “This is the first (girls holiday tournament) Boo has put on, and he’s done a lot to help us and our players as far as getting into college, so we thought we’d try to help him out. If you can stay home and see competition, that’s really good. It’ll be good to be home.”

Princess Anne, ranked No. 1 in South Hampton Roads and the defending Group AAA state champion, is joined in the tournament by an Overton High team from Memphis that features a handful of Division I recruits . Princess Anne’s Elizabeth Williams is No. 1 on ESPNU’s Super 60 for the Class of 2011.

Lake Taylor, ranked second in South Hampton Roads, also is competing in the tournament, although the Titans are not in Princess Anne’s bracket.

“There are a lot of boys tournaments nationally, but there’s not a lot of girls tournaments,” Williams said. “We, along with Nike, are going to get behind this and make this one of the better tournaments in the country. There’s one in Phoenix, but we wanted to put together one on the East Coast.”

The Boo Williams tournament highlights a busy local girls schedule. The Virginia Showcase Invitational, featuring No. 3 Maury and No. 5 Western Branch, is Saturday at Virginia Wesleyan. The Norfolk Scope Holiday Classic – a dry run for the Eastern Region tournament at the arena – begins Tuesday, while the 16-team Lady Greyhound Classic at Norcom opens Dec. 26.

Jami Frankenberry, (757) 446-2376, jami.frankenberry@pilotonline.com