Another basketball season is upon us, and the girls team is defending their 4A state title, and preparing for another hopeful deep run into March. The goal is familiar as they made it to the State Championship game each of the last two seasons. Although they are only returning one starter, Alexis Bordas, for at least the regular season.
“The biggest goal is to try and win another state championship; I still believe we can do that,” said Bordas.
They have another hard schedule this season, and although very few players have a lot of varsity time. They still have seven seniors to help offset any potential challenges that a young team could bring. Although Lala Woods is out for at least the regular season, they will use her as another coach to help with the younger team. Eighth year assistant coach Lucy Milton said that they are going to use Lala to grow as a team.
“We’ve talked a lot about keeping Lala in the back of our minds and playing for her and I think that will help us continue to grow as a united team,” said Milton.
Head Coach Ryan Young the last few seasons always produces a tough schedule, and although it’s not as tough as years past, it still is a very tough schedule. There are many games to keep an eye on this season. Morgantown will be a good team again, and those two games will be good as usual, but here are a few others I have my eye on:
- Westerville South at Ohio Dominican-December 7th
- Martins Ferry at Wesbanco Arena-December 13th
- Fairland at Marietta-December 28th
- Nitro at home Feb. 8th and away Feb. 15th
- Kennedy Catholic at home-February 18th
Although there are some that they aren’t playing in the regular season, that will be the best in the state once again.
“Spring Valley and Morgantown…George Washington will be pretty good again, but I think we’ll be right up there with them,” said Bordas.
Based on their regular season schedule, there are eight games that will be a tough test, the six listed above, and the two games against Morgantown. Westerville South is out of Columbus, and went 18-7 last year. Martins Ferry finished last season at 17-6 with a very young team. On December 28th our girls play Fairland out of Proctorville, Ohio, who went 26-2 in Ohio Division II last season, and made it to the state final four as a one seed. The girls will get two games this season against defending Triple A state champion Nitro, who went 25-3 last season, and only lost one player to graduation. Then the last regular season game is against Kennedy Catholic out of Hermitage, PA, who finished last season with a record of 25-4, one loss thanks to Wheeling Park, and went on to win the Pennsylvania 2A state Championship.
With such a young team, I definitely think that the first half of the season could be a slow start, but I think as the team gets more experience, they will finish well, and maybe even make another State Championship run. Based on their regular season schedule, I think they will finish the regular season with a record of 15-7.
