By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
A dark horse is emerging in Metro varsity girls basketball. The Roosevelt High School Lady Rough Riders have positioned themselves as contenders, starting 2026 with a 13-2 record and a balanced combination of scoring talent and defensive pressure that opponents will have to contend with.
Head coach Aaliyah Wilson, in her first season leading this talented roster, described her players as passionate and relentless competitors. Wilson calls this group one of the hardest working teams she has ever coached, a unit defined by effort and love for the game.
“Best way to describe my team is they are some go-getters, they hustle a lot, they have heart,” says Wilson. “You could tell that a lot of them are passionate about the game. You tell them to do something and they are going to go out and do their best. They work really hard as a team.”
Wilson, a Baltimore, Maryland, native, brings her own basketball passion to the program. A highly recruited player, she chose to play at Howard University on scholarship before transferring to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. An injury ended her playing career, but her devotion to the sport remains strong.
“I’m originally from Baltimore, and I play basketball in Baltimore for Seton Keough High School, a pretty good private all-girls high school, and I went on to play a year at Howard University’s basketball. I was on scholarship then I transferred to University of Maryland, Baltimore County where I played for two years before an injury cut my career short,” says Wilson.
With four seniors, two juniors, one sophomore, and three freshmen, Roosevelt has a promising mix of experience and emerging talent. Wilson says seniors Giselle Dollar and Ellery Burke Brown, both Division I signees, are key contributors on a team loaded with scorers and leaders on and off the floor.
Senior captain Giselle Dollar says the team’s unity and steadiness are the glue that keeps the Lady Rough Riders performing at a high level.
“We are consistent throughout the entire game,” says Dollar. “We stick together and play the same way no matter if we are winning or losing.”
Strengths and weaknesses are part of any successful team’s journey, and Roosevelt’s players are no exception. On offense the Rough Riders excel at scoring all over the court. On defense Wilson says the team’s defining characteristic is intensity.
“Outside of our defense, I would say our biggest strength is intensity,” says Wilson. “We have multiple scorers Ellery, Sloan, Giselle, Emma and bench players who bring that same energy. We run a very intense press that rattles teams. We can apply pressure the entire game, and that leads to easy points we can convert. It is tough for teams to handle when we can score off both offense and defense.”
Even with a strong profile, perfection is elusive. Wilson said composure and tempo control are areas the team must refine if it hopes to make a deep playoff run.
“I think we, one, we need to work on our composure. We can get frantic sometimes, we can let other teams disorient us and we get away from our true offensive identity,” says Wilson. “I think we can work on a little bit more tempo and composure, knowing when to go fast, knowing when to slow it down, knowing just when other teams make runs that we do not have to play the same frantic basketball that they are playing.”
Coaching philosophies influence everything a team does, and Wilson’s approach centers around effort, discipline, and a willingness to learn and grow.
“My coaching philosophy is just go hard. If you make a mistake, make up for it. Encourage your teammates, be willing to learn, be coachable, but also have the confidence to go out there and do things and do it at your best,” says Wilson. “We all are learning. I am learning as a coach as well, but again, I am going to show up regardless and give my all. I just feel like a lot of the girls need discipline and I am here to set that example of discipline so we can have some efficiency in what we run and also that is able to build our identity.”
According to Dollar, who has played under multiple coaches at Roosevelt, Wilson’s coaching style centers on trust.
“This year our coaches, especially our head coach, she trusts us,” says Dollar. “I would say there is a lot of trust. She lets us do what we are good at, so for this team we are really talented shooters, but sometimes you make it, sometimes you do not, but she trusts us to execute and go out there and just like leave it all out on the court.”
When asked whether Roosevelt has the potential for a deep postseason run, Wilson gave a confident answer. She believes in her team’s talent and focus.
“Absolutely, and I am coaching them for that. Every single game,” says Wilson. “I let them know it is a must-win game. I do not care who the competition is, and that is why I am big on running the things that we need to run because we need to polish them up every game. It does not matter what the score is. Next game we have to come and run it even better because we know that people are coming after us and I believe that if we can keep on getting better each game, that our run for state will just get easier for us.”
Wilson sees a path that begins with a strong finish in Metro and continues into districts and beyond.
“I definitely think that we have a great, great path towards state and right now we are just looking at finishing off Metro strong and letting that carry us into districts and letting our districts carry us into states,” Wilson concludes.
Dollar shares that belief and envisions the Lady Rough Riders building on last year’s success.
“I think we have some great senior talent along with some great underclassmen talent that I think if we continue to grow together and be consistent throughout it all, I think we can definitely make a deep run at state, definitely deeper than we did last year,” Dollar says. “I think some of that experience from last year will help us bring the underclassmen into it, and I think this team will have a great chance of making it really deep.”
