Team Preview: Hillsboro Lady Indians
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
For the second season in a row the Hillsboro Lady Indians will be under the direction of head coach JR Moberly and this year, following one year in his system, Hillsboro looks to continue their improvement from this offseason into the regular season.
The Lady Indians not only want to improve on their overall record from last season, but they want to add to what they learned a year ago with three seniors who are determined to help move the Hillsboro program in the right direction.
Seniors this season for HHS are Whitney Earley, Danielle Gillman and Carey Juillerat as all three were a part of the varsity program last season.
That group of seniors is followed by juniors Taylor Stanforth, Taylor Moberly (a varsity player as a sophomore) and Alex Stratton. Sophomores include Madison Colliver and Britney Bowen, and freshmen on the varsity squad are Trista Rhodes, Hannah Kibler and Kaylynn Bell as there are three of each grade level on the 2011-12 team. In the entire high school program, the Lady Indians have a total of 19 players.
"We are very young, but we are pretty athletic," Moberly said. "We are more physical than we were last year, and we have a lot of work ahead with all the young players we have this year.
"We'll see five or six freshmen and sophomores mixed in as the season goes along, so we’ll have a lot of younger kids seeing some minutes mixed with the older kids."
Though with the team mostly young, Moberly did speak about his seniors.
"Our three seniors are all excellent students, great kids and will go to college next year and be successful with whatever they do," Moberly said. "Carey started almost every game for us last year. Whitney started a lot of games for us, and Danielle was our first post player off the bench. She had to play behind A.J. Sanders and Jenni Willey, but she did learn a lot from playing against those two every day in practice last year.
"They all have worked hard this offseason, and they bring a quiet leadership to our team. That's going to be very important with all the youth we have. They are a key part in the rebuilding that starts this year, and they have embraced that role."
What about the rest of the team?
"A couple of our juniors will play some JV and varsity basketball to try to provide some stability for our JV team," Moberly said. "We are asking an awful lot of those girls, as it is a big commitment to do both. We have about six kids starting out playing both, but that is an ever-changing thing.
"Taylor (Moberly), who played a fair amount last year as a sophomore … we'll look to her for her ball-handling skills, as she'll see minutes at point guard, and for her athletic ability on defense to help keep pressure on the opponent."
This team will have strengths, one being their team speed and overall athletic ability, but there is improvement to be made.
"We need to work on our basic basketball skills," Moberly said. "We need to handle the ball better, we need to get to the basket, we need to shoot the ball better from the perimeter because we don't have the size we have to make those shots from out there.
"We have to overcome that lack of size with the ability to get rebounds somehow. Defensively, we are going to have to apply a lot of pressure because there is a lot of size against some of the teams we are playing this year. That will be a big challenge for us."
The head coach describes his team as a real interesting mix.
"To start the season, we'll dress three from each grade. They are great kids with a lot of different personalties," Moberly said. "They are fun to be with, but a key for us is how we blend kids from four different classes. The sooner we see some positive results in that respect, the sooner we'll see positive results on the scoreboard."
This offseason, the Lady Indians played in a few different games this summer.
"We had a good offseason," Moberly said. "We had good turnouts for open gyms, especially since we have so many kids playing other sports. Our scrimmages have at times shown promise, and at other times shown our inexperience. They've been good as we know what we have to work on."
Again, the Lady Indians' season will go as far as how all the grade levels mesh with one another.
"We talked early on that we weren't going to talk about seniors. We talked about we weren't going to talk about freshmen, and we weren't going to talk about anything in-between," Moberly said. "We aren't a a group of individuals, we are an individual group.
"We are classified that way, which is something we can't turn a blind eye to, but we see ourselves as a team. That's not limited to just the varsity kids, but to the entire high school program. We practice together every day.
“They share rides to and from practice, and they hang out together away from basketball. We really consider ourselves a group of 19 instead of separate groups of classes, and we try to encourage that as much as possible."[[In-content Ad]]
The Lady Indians not only want to improve on their overall record from last season, but they want to add to what they learned a year ago with three seniors who are determined to help move the Hillsboro program in the right direction.
Seniors this season for HHS are Whitney Earley, Danielle Gillman and Carey Juillerat as all three were a part of the varsity program last season.
That group of seniors is followed by juniors Taylor Stanforth, Taylor Moberly (a varsity player as a sophomore) and Alex Stratton. Sophomores include Madison Colliver and Britney Bowen, and freshmen on the varsity squad are Trista Rhodes, Hannah Kibler and Kaylynn Bell as there are three of each grade level on the 2011-12 team. In the entire high school program, the Lady Indians have a total of 19 players.
"We are very young, but we are pretty athletic," Moberly said. "We are more physical than we were last year, and we have a lot of work ahead with all the young players we have this year.
"We'll see five or six freshmen and sophomores mixed in as the season goes along, so we’ll have a lot of younger kids seeing some minutes mixed with the older kids."
Though with the team mostly young, Moberly did speak about his seniors.
"Our three seniors are all excellent students, great kids and will go to college next year and be successful with whatever they do," Moberly said. "Carey started almost every game for us last year. Whitney started a lot of games for us, and Danielle was our first post player off the bench. She had to play behind A.J. Sanders and Jenni Willey, but she did learn a lot from playing against those two every day in practice last year.
"They all have worked hard this offseason, and they bring a quiet leadership to our team. That's going to be very important with all the youth we have. They are a key part in the rebuilding that starts this year, and they have embraced that role."
What about the rest of the team?
"A couple of our juniors will play some JV and varsity basketball to try to provide some stability for our JV team," Moberly said. "We are asking an awful lot of those girls, as it is a big commitment to do both. We have about six kids starting out playing both, but that is an ever-changing thing.
"Taylor (Moberly), who played a fair amount last year as a sophomore … we'll look to her for her ball-handling skills, as she'll see minutes at point guard, and for her athletic ability on defense to help keep pressure on the opponent."
This team will have strengths, one being their team speed and overall athletic ability, but there is improvement to be made.
"We need to work on our basic basketball skills," Moberly said. "We need to handle the ball better, we need to get to the basket, we need to shoot the ball better from the perimeter because we don't have the size we have to make those shots from out there.
"We have to overcome that lack of size with the ability to get rebounds somehow. Defensively, we are going to have to apply a lot of pressure because there is a lot of size against some of the teams we are playing this year. That will be a big challenge for us."
The head coach describes his team as a real interesting mix.
"To start the season, we'll dress three from each grade. They are great kids with a lot of different personalties," Moberly said. "They are fun to be with, but a key for us is how we blend kids from four different classes. The sooner we see some positive results in that respect, the sooner we'll see positive results on the scoreboard."
This offseason, the Lady Indians played in a few different games this summer.
"We had a good offseason," Moberly said. "We had good turnouts for open gyms, especially since we have so many kids playing other sports. Our scrimmages have at times shown promise, and at other times shown our inexperience. They've been good as we know what we have to work on."
Again, the Lady Indians' season will go as far as how all the grade levels mesh with one another.
"We talked early on that we weren't going to talk about seniors. We talked about we weren't going to talk about freshmen, and we weren't going to talk about anything in-between," Moberly said. "We aren't a a group of individuals, we are an individual group.
"We are classified that way, which is something we can't turn a blind eye to, but we see ourselves as a team. That's not limited to just the varsity kids, but to the entire high school program. We practice together every day.
“They share rides to and from practice, and they hang out together away from basketball. We really consider ourselves a group of 19 instead of separate groups of classes, and we try to encourage that as much as possible."[[In-content Ad]]