AKRON – Chris Kindig says the Tippecanoe Valley High School girls basketball team has come a long way in the last year. How far? "We're miles ahead of where we were at this point last year," said the second-year varsity girls basketball coach. The Lady Vikings were 5-15 in Kindig's first season. They open 2011-2012 season Thursday when they host Bremen, and Kindig says there are expectations this year. "We want to contend for the conference championship," said Kindig. "You always want to win your conference, and we think we can compete for that. We'd like to win our Thanksgiving Tournament, and we think we can compete with the teams in that." The Lady Vikings were 3-4 in the TRC a year ago. Valley averaged 47 points per game last season, while giving up 53. "The girls are very optimistic," said Kindig. "We played in a lot of tournaments over the summer, and we played very well. We beat some teams where, I won't say we shouldn't have beat them, but maybe the talent level was a little different, but we played hard and we were able to beat them. That really raised the girls' confidence level." Kindig said at the top of his list of goals is for his players to improve every day. "We want to make sure we improve every day," said Kindig. "Everybody points toward the sectional, and we want to be playing our best basketball at the end of the season. I felt like we did that last year, and we want to do that again this year. That means me have to work hard in every practice, we have to play hard in every game." The Lady Vikings will play their first four games of the season at home, as they host Bremen Thursday, host county rival Warsaw on Nov. 18 and host the Thanksgiving Classic on Nov. 26. Valley will hit the road for the first time Dec. 1 when it heads to Plymouth, and will open TRC play Dec. 3 at Wabash. The Lady Vikings' varsity roster lists 13 players – four seniors, three juniors, three sophomores and three freshmen. Highlighting the list of players returning from last year's team are seniors Staci Groom, Tory Keirn and Megan Bibler. "We have three seniors that are going to be our captains – Staci Groom, Tory Keirn and Megan Bibler," said Kindig. "And with the other players we have, we're pretty optimistic we can compete in and have a chance to win every game we play." Groom led the Lady Vikings in scoring last season with nearly 19 points per contest, while Keirn averaged seven points and Bibler added four points per game. Bibler led the team in rebounds with five per game, while Keirn pulled down four boards per contest. Kindig said Keirn has been his most-improved player in the last six months and said she is capable of averaging 15 points and 10 rebounds per game. Brooke O'Connor is the fourth senior on the roster. Juniors on the varsity roster include Danielle Bussard, Courtney Newsome and Connor Fraser; sophomores are Cara Hoffman, Kelsey Ball and Sara Alexander; and freshman on the varsity roster include Taylor Trippiedi, Caylie Teel and Casey Dunn.
