Fifteen-year-olds Whitney Sykes and Whitney Smith have played for the St. Louis Comets basketball team since they were in fourth grade. They've been to the AAU national finals with the team four times.

This year, they and their teammates hope to improve on their fifth place finish in last year's nationals.

This year's version of the Comets just started playing in AAU competition last month. Until mid-March, many of the players were playing in their first season of high school basketball.

Sykes was the leading scorer on her Granite City (Ill.) High School team. She was a point guard on a team that finished 17-9.

Whitney Smith

Smith was a starting forward for Visitation Academy, that finished second in its division in the Missouri high school state tournament.

Fifteen-year-old Sarah Young of Belleville, Ill., said, "This year's team is definitely going to the nationals." She said the fact so many Comet players competed against older girls on their high school teams is definitely a plus this year.

Young was a freshman guard on her Belleville West Township High School team this year. About the Comets, she said, "We're a very good team."

Young also started playing basketball when she was in fourth grade. But, this is only her fourth year with the Comets.

Sarah Young

The Comets are coached by Rick Newkirk and is a select team. That means the team can pick players from throughout the metro area on both sides of the river.

Fifteen-year-old Rachel Viehmann is the Comets' tallest player at 6'3". She also had a fourth grade start to basketball but is in only her second year with the Comets.

Rachel Viehmann

Ashley House

Sixteen-year-old Ashley House came to the Comets 1 1/2 years ago from a rival AAU team, the Hoops of the Matthews-Dickey Boys and Girls Club. Asked what her former teammates thought of the defection, Ashley said, "They weren't too happy."

The 5'10" Ashley was a starter for the Cardinal Ritter girls team. She had a 15.7 ppg average during her first season of high school play.

With most of the Comet players now in high school, the number of games they play in a season actually goes down. As elementary and middle school students, the Comets would play year around.

Whitney Sykes said, "I'll play about 70 games this year. Before high school, we'd play year around and play as many as 100 games."

Kelsey Luna

Fourteen-year-old Kelsey Luna is the only eighth grader on this year's Comets team. Although she started playing when she was in second grade, she's only been with the Comets for one year.

The 5'5" point guard is a student at Parkway Northeast Middle School.

She's one of the kids who wants to be a professional basketball player in the WNBA. Concerning her current height, she said, "I think I'm still growing."

But, Whitney Smith is a girl who isn't planning to play even college basketball. She said, "I haven't grown since I was in fourth grade and 5'11" is pretty short for a post player."

However, she said, "I'm going to miss basketball a lot so I want to stay in sports as an athletic trainer."

The Comets' tallest player, Rachel Viehmann, also thinks she's "just about done growing." But, at 6'3", she is tall enough for basketball at higher levels of competition.

She said her challenge now will be to "bulk up," get stronger, more coordinated and more confident. "I grew five or six inches when I was in seventh grade," she said. That growth spurt forced her to readjust her whole game, especially the way she shoots the ball.

With her growth about over, Rachel thinks she can start some weight-lifting. Most trainers urge kids not to do much weight lifting while their bones are still growing. While the growth "plates" at the joints are soft, weight lifting can put on too much strain.

Rachel said she was fortunate that her rapid growth didn't diminish her running speed.

This year's Comets basketball team got back together in mid-March and was playing in AAU tournaments before the end of the month.

Coach Newkirk said, "With the high school experience, it won't take them long to get together as a team."

He and the girls think they will be able to be in top form before making their bid for the AAU national finals in July. They're looking to do even better than last year, when they were fifth among 86 teams in the national tournament.