Wawasee Looks To Blend Youth, Experience
November 1, 2017 at 3:53 p.m.
Wawasee Looks To Blend Youth, Experience
By Mark [email protected]
“We did have five seniors who graduated, but we have four letter winners returning, and we were fortunate enough to have a lot of sophomores playing JV last year, getting more experience, and that’s one thing we knew was coming,” said Carpenter.
“So we prepared for that. Coming in we’ll have three seniors and a junior who are returning letter winners, and we also have three more juniors who played a lot of JV and played varsity ball all summer, then we couple that with one sophomore and one freshman.”
The returning letter winners are seniors Kabrea Rostochak, Hannah-Marie Lamle and Aubrey Kuhn, and junior Casey Schroeder. Each averaged about five points a game last season.
Rostochak and Lamle represent most of the height for Wawasee, and each pulled down about four rebounds a contest last year.
The difference between last year and this season will be fairly obvious to the Warrior Nation faithful.
“Last year we had some size, but we weren’t the quickest of teams. This year, we do not have size but we have some girls who have improved their skills and we have some quickness,” Carpenter said.
The coach said he’s adapting his points of emphasis in practice to match this year’s playing skills set.
“Every group you get is going to be a little different. I’m not one of those coaches who says “we’re running this and this and that, regardless of our personnel,’” he said.
“One of the nice things about summer ball is you can try some things and figure out what’s going to work with our current group. We were able to try some things and get a feel for what kind of tempo we play best at, and things we do well offensively and defensively.”
Caitlin Wortinger, Morgan Adkins, Kenzie Smith, Danielle Jenkins and Harmony Schlabach round out the top nine for Wawasee.
“We’ll play nine, and each of those nine will get a decent amount of playing time,” said Carpenter. “We’ll try to play uptempo and see how it goes. Right now it seems to cater to who we have, with our ball handlers and our shooters. With being able to handle the ball, shoot the ball and create in space, we should be in good shape.”
Look for the Lady Warriors to step things up on defense, at least early in the season. Carpenter has a lot of questions he’ll get answered in the November portion of the schedule.
“Can we play aggressive without giving away too many easy buckets or creating too many knick-knack fouls? Can we press without fouling? Can we get in someone’s grill and pressure the basketball without fouling, and still be able to protect the basketball and protect the paint? That’ll be key for us since we don’t have a whole lot of size,” he said.
Another key will be not giving up third and fourth shot attempts to teams.
“That plagued us some even last year,” said Carpenter. “We assumed we could out-jump some people, and that wasn’t always the case, especially against the better teams.
“So we’re going to need to take care of some things that could be weaknesses. When we minimize those, that will allow us to exploit our strengths and our quickness.”
Wawasee opens its season at 7 p.m. Thursday, hosting Mishawaka Marian in a varsity-only affair.
“We did have five seniors who graduated, but we have four letter winners returning, and we were fortunate enough to have a lot of sophomores playing JV last year, getting more experience, and that’s one thing we knew was coming,” said Carpenter.
“So we prepared for that. Coming in we’ll have three seniors and a junior who are returning letter winners, and we also have three more juniors who played a lot of JV and played varsity ball all summer, then we couple that with one sophomore and one freshman.”
The returning letter winners are seniors Kabrea Rostochak, Hannah-Marie Lamle and Aubrey Kuhn, and junior Casey Schroeder. Each averaged about five points a game last season.
Rostochak and Lamle represent most of the height for Wawasee, and each pulled down about four rebounds a contest last year.
The difference between last year and this season will be fairly obvious to the Warrior Nation faithful.
“Last year we had some size, but we weren’t the quickest of teams. This year, we do not have size but we have some girls who have improved their skills and we have some quickness,” Carpenter said.
The coach said he’s adapting his points of emphasis in practice to match this year’s playing skills set.
“Every group you get is going to be a little different. I’m not one of those coaches who says “we’re running this and this and that, regardless of our personnel,’” he said.
“One of the nice things about summer ball is you can try some things and figure out what’s going to work with our current group. We were able to try some things and get a feel for what kind of tempo we play best at, and things we do well offensively and defensively.”
Caitlin Wortinger, Morgan Adkins, Kenzie Smith, Danielle Jenkins and Harmony Schlabach round out the top nine for Wawasee.
“We’ll play nine, and each of those nine will get a decent amount of playing time,” said Carpenter. “We’ll try to play uptempo and see how it goes. Right now it seems to cater to who we have, with our ball handlers and our shooters. With being able to handle the ball, shoot the ball and create in space, we should be in good shape.”
Look for the Lady Warriors to step things up on defense, at least early in the season. Carpenter has a lot of questions he’ll get answered in the November portion of the schedule.
“Can we play aggressive without giving away too many easy buckets or creating too many knick-knack fouls? Can we press without fouling? Can we get in someone’s grill and pressure the basketball without fouling, and still be able to protect the basketball and protect the paint? That’ll be key for us since we don’t have a whole lot of size,” he said.
Another key will be not giving up third and fourth shot attempts to teams.
“That plagued us some even last year,” said Carpenter. “We assumed we could out-jump some people, and that wasn’t always the case, especially against the better teams.
“So we’re going to need to take care of some things that could be weaknesses. When we minimize those, that will allow us to exploit our strengths and our quickness.”
Wawasee opens its season at 7 p.m. Thursday, hosting Mishawaka Marian in a varsity-only affair.
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