While many of the girls on the Starr’s Mill Lady Panthers argue that the team strengths do not lie in shooting, they dominated last Saturday’s game against the Whitewater Lady Wildcats in a 70-8 game.
“Coach heavily relies on us offensive rebounding because if we don’t then we’re not gonna get in the game,” senior Ava Hendrie said. “We’re not an amazing shooting team, but if we offensive rebound, that’s how we get all our extra time on the shot clock.”
So the question is, how did they obtain and then exponentially grow a lead like that during last Saturday’s? The answer is, possession and defense. With the change in coaching staff, the girls have had to learn a new type of defense along with strategies to maintain possession of the ball for as long as possible.
“Defense is the foundation of what we do and so we’re really intentional about what we do to prepare for that but also understanding the purpose of it,” first-year head coach Brandon Cerezola said. “They’ve started to buy into it more so because we do that it makes it really hard for teams, at the end of the day, to score and create possession.”
Freshman Aftyn Heiden started the scoring for the Lady Panthers followed by sophomore Lindsey Kopacek. Heiden ended the opening quarter with four total points as the Panther led 24-0.
The offense continued into the second quarter in a quick succession of scoring but limited the Lady Wildcats to only score once by pressuring the ball in zones and regaining possession. The half ended with a score of 48-2.
From there, the Lady Panthers’ lead only continued to grow to 52 points in the third quarter. The third quarter ended with a score of 56-4.
During the final quarter, the Lady Panthers finished out the game with 8 points from junior Natalia Moc, 4 points from Hendrie and 2 from sophomore Maddie Grant. This gave the girls a 62 point lead to finish out the game by maintaining possession of the ball and offensive rebounding at every chance.
“I think it’s important to keep our passes, shots, and our purpose up because it’s hard to compete when intensity is high but you don’t have a purpose to what you’re doing,” Heiden said.
Heiden led the team with 12 points. She was closely followed by Hendrie who totaled 11 points. Kopacek contributed 10 points.
“I think [keeping up intensity] goes into our team motto, ‘We are one’,” Cerezola said. “So I think for us, whoever is rotating in there is playing for the common good of the group and playing for the goal we have set which, honestly, is the reason we’re out here, and I think that’s what makes our group so special.”
They went on to play Central High school on Jan. 24th and won 49-35. The girls are currently on a five-game winning streak, 14-4 overall. They sit third in the region standings at 5-1.
Both varsity teams will play against Harris County on Jan. 28th at home. The girls game begins at 6 p.m.