By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

BILOXI — Biloxi’s 6-foot-4 center Zaniya Johnson has already established herself as a major pain in the paint for the opposition in her young career with the Lady Indians.
And, with the Lady Indians still in the search for the first-ever girls’ state basketball championship, followers and supporters of the program hope she can continue that dominating play not only for three more games but for three more years after that as well.

Johnson is averaging a double-double for the Lady Indians, who stand at a solid 26-5 overall heading into the first-ever Class 7A South State Quarterfinals Tournament in the Class 7A South State Quarterfinal Tournament in Perkinston this weekend.
Biloxi is set to face Northwest Rankin Saturday at 1 p.m., at Dantzler Arena on the campus of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.
Her latest outing marked the 20th double-double of the season for Johnson, who saw some action as a seventh-grader for the varsity before really starting to make her mark as a middle school eighth-grader for the BHS varsity squad last year.

“Zaniya has had a great season, statistically.” seventh-year Lady Indians head coach Devin Hill said. “I am so proud of her poise. To be so young, she has seen every defense known to basketball this season, and she has still managed to put up great numbers. She is just a team-first kid who loves to be around her teammates. I am excited that she still has three years left to play with the Lady Indians.”
Last season, in support of senior standout Shaneal Corpuz, Johnson burst onto the scene in a supporting role for BHS as she averaged right at 10 points per game along with nine rebounds per contest and two blocks.
The Lady Indians went 25-7 last year and captured the Region 8-6A title. With Corpuz, who is now a freshman standout at William Carey, leading the team in virtually every statistical category the Lady Indians made it to the “Big House” and were just two wins away from that elusive gold ball before falling to Tupelo 56-45 in the Overall Class 6A Final Four semifinal round.
This season, with Corpuz having taken her talents to Hattiesburg, Johnson has filled that void as the go-to player for Biloxi in amassing the highest win total for a season so far in Hill’s tenure.

“This is her first season being the only big man on the court, so she is constantly double-teamed,” Hill added. “She has accepted that and found ways to be successful. Life was pretty easy for her when she had Shaneal inside with her. Now that Shaneal is gone, she has kind of taken ownership of the paint.”
And the property underneath the basket is in good hands, as Johnson has nearly doubled her averages in both points per game and blocks while still remaining a constant force on the glass.
At one point, she posted a double-double performance in 15 out of 17 games as the Lady Indians started the season off at 16-1.
Her play quickly garnered the attention of opposing coaches as well.

“At this point, I feel she is definitely one of the best players in the state,” Marcus Price, head girls coach at Gulfport High and Biloxi’s long-time arch-rival, said.
Price has seen plenty of Johnson over the past two seasons, facing the Lady Indian inside force four times in that span in region play.
“She runs the floor very well, has great hands, and has learned to use her body in the post as well as anyone I’ve seen this year,” Price said. “She has the ability to single-handedly take over a game. Though this is only my second year on the coast, It’s my understanding she joined the varsity team as a seventh-grader. So from an experience standpoint, this would be equivalent to her senior year. Last year I told my coaches that once she figured out what she had, she would be tough to deal with. She has a very bright future.”
Price isn’t the only coast hoops leader impressed.
St. Martin ,who will join Biloxi in the Class 7A South State Quarterfinal Tournament this weekend, has faced the Lady Indians three times in Region 4-7A action this season and if both teams win two more games they would face off in the overall Class 7A championship game.
“She is such a force on the offensive glass” St. Martin’s Jason Kennedy, also in his second-year on the job, said. “She does a great job of sealing and keeping the ball high while finishing at the rim. She is a walking double-double. The crazy thing is we don’t know what her ceiling is yet. I personally think she is a future pro.”

The accolades don’t stop there. Hancock head coach Jamie Sisco has produced the two most successful girls’ basketball seasons in South Mississippi over the past two years with an overall record of 55-4. Half of those losses came to the Lady Indians.
“Z is a special talent and tough to play against for sure,” Sisco, who team sits at 29-1 as it enters the Class 6A South State Quarterfinal Tournament this weekend, said. “Her development and improvement in such a short time is impressive. If she continues to accept coaching from Coach Hill and trust the process, the sky is the limit for her because she certainly has the size and athleticism.”
Although there have been many big games for Johnson her freshman season, the biggest may have come mid-way through the year at Biloxi’s own Lady Indians Christmas Classic at the Biloxi Sports Arena.

Johnson produced a career-defining performance by pouring in 43 points and pulling down 13 rebounds as the Lady Indians thumped St. Scholastica of Covington, La. 57-22 on the opening day of the seventh annual two-day, 24-team, and 24-game affair.
She has also scored over 30 points on three other occasions this season and grabbed at least 20 boards in three games as well. In Biloxi’s latest outing, Johnson posted yet another double-double and scored over half of the Lady Indian’s point total in the process with a 23 points, 12 rebound stat sheet in a 41-34 win over visiting Brandon to open the first-ever Class 7A South State playoffs Saturday She also added seven blocked shots.
“She has meant a great deal to our program over the last seasons,” Hill concluded. “It’s crazy to think she still had three more years to go. We are looking forward to the remainder of this postseason, and what it holds for our team.”