Area girls hoopsters have room to grow in coming seasons
The 2018-19 high school girls basketball season came to an end in Ohio on Saturday with the crowning of state champions in Divisions I-IV.
The campaign is now over, but folks are still talking hoops because of the upcoming NCAA men’s and women’s tournaments.
With that in mind, I thought I’d take a look back at the seasons compiled by some of our local girls teams.
I’ll do the same thing next Monday for the boys, after championships are awarded next weekend on that side of the ledger.
Just a note: I already gave my thoughts about Jonathan Alder’s girls and boys teams and the Triad girls a while ago, so we’ll concentrate on our other local teams today and next Monday.
The three girls squads in Union County that make up our coverage area did not have as much success as the Lady Pioneers. However, there were some bright spots.
Ironically, Marysville, North Union and Fairbanks each had new head coaches. It’s the first season that I can remember in which all three schools in the county had new girls basketball coaches at the same time.
That can often lead to some rough spots as players and the new coach are getting used to each other.
The Marysville Lady Monarchs finished the season with a 10-13 record under first-year head coach Brooke Young.
Young was the third head coach that the team’s seniors played for, following Andrea Miller and Mindy Eisnaugle.
As the seniors told me during the preseason, it was going to be an adjustment, since they were all still in middle school when Young served as an MHS assistant coach.
The girls had some decent victories over teams such as Grove City, Hilliard Bradley and Central Crossing.
They still, however, fell to the likes of powerful teams Dublin Coffman, Hilliard Davidson and Upper Arlington.
The two losses to the Golden Bears, however, were by a combined 16 points, including a four-point setback early in January.
Although the seniors on the team will be missed, Young has talented underclassmen coming back, including Caitlin Cotner, Sydney Lee and Kassidy Lee.
Cotner and the Lee sisters had strong scoring games this past season and hopefully will help take charge of the offense during the 2019-20 campaign.
MHS has one more season in the Ohio Capital Conference Central Division before realignment and must still contend with the Big Three.
Upper Arlington is losing some strong seniors, so maybe Marysville can close the gap with the Lady Bears.
North Union’s girls faced new brand competition as it was their first season in the Central Buckeye Conference.
The Lady Cats won only twice in their first 15 games under first-year head coach Brie Nauman.
NU, however, rebounded in a very good way during the final portion of the season.
The Cats won five of their last three games, which is hopefully a sign of things to come.
North Union has one of the most talented players around in sophomore Journey Blevins, who earned third-team Central District honors in Division III.
With a year under her belt in Nauman’s system, I look for Blevins to become one of the dominant players in the Central District next year.
The Lady Panthers of Fairbanks had the most difficult season of the three.
FHS won only twice, both times against Springfield Northeastern.
The season ended with a first-round tournament loss in D-III to eventual state champion Columbus Africentric.
First-year head coach Landon Fraker went into the season with an inexperienced team.
There were a couple of players such as Michaela Writesel and Bella Rowland who were capable of putting points on the board. The consistency, though, just wasn’t there.
One of the problems was that Fraker didn’t have much time to work with the team during the summer off-season.
I did see some improvement as the season progressed, as the margins of defeat got a little lower.
Fraker is a good coach and I hear there may be some help coming up in the next couple of years from the middle school.
I’ve also heard the same about the Lady Monarchs.
It takes time for a new coach to put his or her stamp on a program.
Hopefully, Young, Nauman and Fraker can help their teams climb up the standings in the coming years.