West Lebanon -- Colleen Taylor began her summer vacation on Tuesday. Finally.

She'll have about four weeks to enjoy it before her junior year at Lebanon High School starts. In that time, she'll do some babysitting, maybe sneak in a summer soccer game or two and try to reconnect with friends she hasn't seen in the past few weeks.

Taylor might have had more time for typical summer diversions … if she hadn't been so busy becoming a national champion.

Taylor and her Derry, N.H.-based New England Shooting Stars AAU basketball team returned on Monday night from a tournament in Phoenix, an appropriate denouement to their season, given their accomplishments of the previous week. Playing in the AAU Division II 15-and-under nationals in Orlando, Fla., the Shooting Stars -- with Taylor in tow -- swept through eight games to win the program's first national crown.

New England capped the run with a 78-62 win over the Maryland Sure Shots on July 15 at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex.

“It means so much more than I can explain,” Taylor said in a phone interview on Monday night while returning home from Boston's Logan Airport. “I never thought anything like this would come, and I never expected to be on a team that would come close. I'd never traveled outside of New England for AAU, not to mention anything else. Winning a championship is amazing.”

The road to Taylor's role in the title started quickly.

Shooting Stars coach Dennis Reed, a longtime youth and high school basketball coach who runs the Shooting Stars program out of his SportsZone indoor sports complex in Derry, saw Taylor play with her Lebanon High varsity girls basketball team in last year's NHIAA Class I semifinals and finals at Southern New Hampshire University. Reed was impressed enough by what he saw to seek out Taylor's parents, Greg and Bev, in the SNHU gym and ask if their daughter would be interested in joining the Shooting Stars.

That Taylor drilled a 3-pointer with a minute left in quadruple overtime and followed that with a steal on the defensive baseline to help the Raiders eliminate St. Thomas in the state semifinals couldn't have hurt.

“I've been in coaching for a long time, and after you've been in coaching for a long time you recognize certain things: athleticism, coordination, a nose for the ball,” Reed said in a phone interview. “She's a strong kid. I saw those things. I didn’t especially like her shot, but because I'm a guy, we’re fixers, right?

“It was one of those things in which I saw a lot of potential. I felt it was worth walking across a gym floor.”

Having played summer AAU hoop with a local club last year (Lebanon Voltage), Taylor wasn't necessarily looking for bigger and better opportunities. But when she understood what Reed had to offer, she was quick to give it a try.

“It was a great opportunity for me to hopefully get seen by college coaches,” she said. “Even though it was a long commute -- about 1½ hours to get to practices each week -- it was worth it because I'd be able to play at a higher skill level than in Lebanon. That upped my game a lot.”

Reed didn't ask much more from Taylor than what she provided the Raiders in their undefeated run to the state finals last winter: defense first, outside shooting as needed. What Taylor received in exchange was some 60 games against competition from all over the country, on a team with girls from 11 other New Hampshire and Massachusetts public and private schools.

“Throughout the season, all the kids have had an opportunity to start; we do a lot of rotating that way, and Colleen's role right now has been coming off the bench and sparking us offensively,” Reed said. “She's a really strong rebounder. Her shot has improved dramatically. She’s capable of knocking down 8-14 points per game.

“The difference between this and the high school competitive level is that this is a good deal higher in the AAU ranks. … She's a very coachable kid. She has a great attitude, and she gets along well with everybody.”

Reed had never produced a national championship team before, but these Shooting Stars made the competition at nationals look relatively tame.

New England won its group with 21-, 12- and 30-point victories. From there, the Stars beat teams from South Carolina by 36 points, Florida by 32, Tennessee by 33 and a second Florida squad by 20 to reach the finals against Maryland.

“Most of the girls on the team, myself included, went down there just to play a lot against different levels of competition that we wouldn't have seen in New England,” Taylor said. “But we didn't expect to win the class.”

Maryland gave the Shooting Stars their toughest test, taking a one-point lead into the half. After drawing level at 44-44 early in the second half, the Stars withstood nearly a dozen lead changes before pulling away in the final three minutes.

“I think it's important for her to have seen the level of competition there is around the country,” Reed said. “It will make her a much more valuable addition to her high school program. I know (Lebanon coach Tim Kehoe) is expecting great things from her. …

“The real gratifying moment was when we won the championship, to watch them jumping and screaming and grabbing each other. … When you've done it this long, you're kind of pinching yourself to say this is such a great group of kids. I’ve been really blessed to coach them.”

Her AAU summer enabled Taylor to travel at a level to which she's not accustomed. In addition to the Florida trip and last week's Nike Oasis Invitational in Arizona, Taylor and the Shooting Stars also traveled to tourneys in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York as well as the state championships in New Hampshire that made the trip to nationals possible.

“I've been able to see a lot of places,” Taylor said. “Going to Arizona was something I never expected, but the landscape and everything is so different. It feels so good to come home and see something green.

“When we landed in Arizona, I heard that it was 114 degrees outside. It blew our minds that it could have been that hot. Coming home to 88 degrees is so much more relaxing.”

So is the knowledge that vacation time has finally begun.

“I haven't been home in 2½ weeks; I've not slept in my own bed for a while,” Taylor said. “I still have summer soccer and some summer basketball, but I can feel more relaxed and can call my friends.

“I'll definitely spend the rest of the summer that I have left to the fullest. Next summer I'll be looking at colleges. This is my last real summer to do whatever.”

It's the first to be spent as a national champion.

Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or (603) 727-3226.