Hoops star happy at last

Ashley Walls and three other campers spent their first day scouting VisionQuest in Elfrida, about 100 miles southeast of Tucson. Walls had been sent to the at-risk home as a last-ditch effort to curb her escaping from group homes as a foster child. Her grades, and attitude, needed improvement.

They decided to make a run for it on Day 2, scampering across the desert, ducking police cars and sirens and bright lights that shone into the prickly abyss. For five hours they walked in the cold and darkness before reaching a home.

"I was scared," Walls said, "because I don't like animals."

They told a homeowner they were on a soccer team. The bus had accidentally left them in the middle of nowhere, they said.

Police cars looking for the quartet whizzed past.

Believing the soccer story, the woman offered to call the police to help them get home safely. They quickly said no.

They ate and slept at the home before calling a taxi the next morning. They gave the cabbie a random apartment building as the final destination, and sprinted out of the car when he asked for the $250 tab.

In less than two days, Walls had slipped out of her last-chance camp and traversed 100 miles back to Tucson. It was her last great escape.

Walls, now a 5-foot-11 star forward at Sahuaro High, said she has lived in eight group homes, having been collected by police each time she ran away, and with three different relatives. She has attended three high schools, plus the Elfrida camp.

But in the year and a half since her escape, Walls, 17, has finally found a comfortable home with her great-grandmother, although she is still a ward of the state. She has settled in at Sahuaro, from which she will graduate in the spring.

She is one of the best girls basketball players in the city, averaging 12.7 points for the 26-6 team.

Tonight at 7, when the No. 6 seed Cougars host Peoria in the first round of 4A-I state basketball tournament, Walls begins her final high school basketball journey. It's far less treacherous than the one that she has taken the past five years.

When Walls was in eighth grade, her mother lost their home. Ashley said her mom was involved with drugs. Mother Stacy Walls said that she "had messed up" for a few years.

Walls was sent to live with her grandparents, Carl and Mary Bowlby. Once a decent student, Walls stopped caring. She was unable to play basketball her freshman year at Canyon del Oro High School because she was academically ineligible. Her sophomore year, she did not play because of a torn knee ligament.

"I tried so many times to figure out what it was that she wanted," Mary Bowlby said. "I never really figured it out."

Walls would sneak out at night and stole money from her grandparents. Once, when her grandparents were out of town, Ashley — who played club basketball — took her grandma's green Toyota Camry joy riding. A friend of the family's spotted her at a gas station at 2 a.m.

Walls never became a regular user of tobacco, drugs or alcohol, she and her family said.

"She rebelled," Mary Bowlby said. "Ashley became very angry, and not necessarily at myself or her grandfather. I felt like she was taking it out on me.

"I tried tolerating it. It got to a point where it was difficult."

After about two years, Walls' grandparents talked to her caseworker and agreed to send her to a group home. She attended Tucson High briefly. When Walls grew upset or frustrated or outraged, she would run away from the home. The second home she was moved to she left after about a month.

She put her belongings — including her favorite Tigger pillow — into a shopping cart and pushed it to her great-grandmother's house.

The police arrived. Legally, they had to arrest Walls.

Walls admits now she was looking for something that couldn't be found — a reunion with her mother and two brothers, who had scattered in three directions.

Walls returned to VisionQuest, where she stayed through the holidays. Her grades improved, and — because she had enrolled at Sahuaro before leaving — she became eligible to play for the Cougars after returning in January 2008.

"It was just a reality check," she said. "It woke me up. I didn't get to do what I was able to do and still be with my family. I started working harder on my grades."

It seemed like a perfect match to coach Steve Botkin. Walls used to sign her text messages with the No. 54; he remembers racing to the uniform closet one day and finding the team still had the jersey number available. Walls' teammates accepted her almost immediately, Botkin said.

"It was meant to be," he said.

After another stint in a group home, Walls moved in with her great-grandmother, Helen Walls. They look after each other.

Ashley and her mother remain close. Still digging out from her freshman-year grades, Walls will likely attend junior college next season. Pima College is recruiting her.

It's almost unbelievable to her family.

"She could have been one of those kids that was lost," her mother said, "but she didn't do that."

Playing basketball has one more perk. Her grandparents and mom attend games. Sometimes, extended family members show up, too.

By playing, Walls likes to think she's bringing her family closer together.

She would love to be able to play professionally — to be able to reunite with her mother and brothers in a happier place and time. It's what she has been searching for all these years.

"Just to have the family," she said, "the way that we used to be."

On StarNet: Find more photos of Ashley Walls at azstarnet.com/slideshows

"It was just a reality check. It woke me up."

Ashley Walls, describing her time at VisionQuest