By: Alexis LeMieux

The girls basketball started the season undefeated with dominant wins over Notre Dame Academy, Newark, Oakwood, and Monroe.

With the start of the new season, there is a lot to look forward to. “I am most looking forward to the Waynesville game,” junior Lucy Warner said. “Waynesville is one of our biggest rivals, so the game is always intense and very close. We won last year by only a couple of points, so I’m excited to see what this year brings.”

“A few highlights this year will be playing at the Cintas Center and our event at Classic in the Country which is something new and should be really fun,” senior Ainsley Gregory said. “And since I’m a senior, I am looking forward to senior night, not because it will be my last home game, but because I get to reflect on how great my time in this program has been and how lucky I have been.”

With a sport like basketball, there is always a lot of preparation that needs to be done. “We put in a lot of preparation pre-season to make sure we are prepared well enough for our in-season games,” Gregory said. “We work hard every practice normally focusing on increasing our strength, our speed, and our skills before games even begin. We always want to work harder in practice so that we have already beaten the team we go up against.”

“As a team, we prepare both physically and mentally for the upcoming season,” Warner said. “We practice or have scrimmages almost every day of the week and always give 100% into our drills to make our practices as gamelike as possible. We prepare mentally by doing the same game day preparation process to stay consistent.”

Separate from team practice, both Gregory and Warner do their individual work in their free time. “In the summer, I work on my ball-handling and shooting,” Warner said. “I put in 100% effort into practices so I can be the best player I can be for the team.”

Gregory, in addition to basketball, does golf in the fall, where she puts her main focus. Though, once her golf season ends, she goes full focus into basketball. “We had open gyms going on before tryouts so I started showing up to those, as well as going to morning shooting before school,” Gregory said. “Coaches are not allowed to coach until the end of October so the players have to lead it. A lot of times we get drills in, rep shots, and even scrimmage just to get everyone getting back into the feel of things.”

The team had their first game on November 22 against Notre Dame Academy, scoring 60-32 where sophomore Libby Bunsold scored double digit points, reaching 19. With back to back games, they won 70-48 against Newark the next day, where three girls scored double digits. Bunsold, junior Lauren Fabrick, and senior Zoe Howard scored 27, 14, and 10 respectively. 

They followed up with three more wins, the first being against Oakwood on November 25, winning 68-25. Then, on December 1, they went against Kings where freshman Macy Miller hit double digits with 15 points, going 48-24 overall. On December 3, they played against Monroe, finishing off 50-19.

That is only the start of the season. With so many more games coming up, the girls have goals for the season to come. “As a team, I think our biggest goal is to win SWBL and get our 6th league title in a row,” Warner said. “Our team wants to go farther in the tournament than last year and make regionals.”

“We have goals to beat certain teams this year, a big one is Mount Notre Dame since we have played them for a few years and they are a good team, as well as Waynesville, Badin, and many other tough opponents we have on the schedule,” Gregory said. “We also have stats goals like limiting our opponents to a certain amount of points per game. For me, my goals are to better and improve myself and to make an impact on the team in any way I can.”

The girls basketball players have learned many things from their experiences playing. “My advice to someone who wants to play basketball is to be willing to put in a ton of extra work and to have confidence. Basketball takes a lot of practice and skill,” Gregory said. “When I look around at my team, I see hard workers and determined people and that is why we have so much success.”

“I also think confidence is so important, not just in basketball, but in every sport,” Gregory said. “Having belief in yourself can be one of your most powerful traits and if you can channel that in basketball, then you will have opportunities to do great things.”

“Be coachable and not take criticism personally whether that’s from your coach or your teammates,” Warner said. “I would also say to work as hard as you can, and most importantly, have fun.”

The team will go up against Franklin at home on December 6.