Highland Lady Bulldogs cagers seeking another level in 2019-20 season
The Highland Lady Bulldogs girls basketball team has a very upbeat vibe to the 2019-20 season under second-year coach Clint Hamilton.
HHS returns three starters and two role players who played heavy minutes last year and a solid mix of experience and youth that will give the Lady Bulldogs plenty of energy on the court.
“So, we return four seniors and we’ve got five juniors back; we return a lot of kids and we’ve got a good mix of bigs and guards, so we can do a lot of different things offensively,” said Hamilton, whose team went 25-8 last year. “We can go small, we can go big, so I feel we’ve got a lot of different ways to counter how teams are going to guard us defensively.”
In the backcourt, senior guards Ellie Brown and Megan Kronk return with plenty of leadership, experience and ball handling savvy. Brown led the team in scoring last year at 12.4 points per game and Kronk was solid as well, averaging 7.4 points.
“We have played together for a very long time, so we know what we’re both going to be doing, looking for in certain situations (on the floor) and we’ve all played together for quite some time and we just know how to make certain things work in certain situations,” said Kronk.
“There’s a lot of experience just with my guards as far as handling pressure and as far as getting us into an offense whether it’s man (to man) or a zone, so yeah we feel pretty good offensively, right now,” Hamilton said.
In the frontcourt, Highland will have a size advantage on many opponents as it averages around 6-feet across the baseline with junior post player Bella LaPorta, junior forward Taylor Kesner, senior forward Ashlyn Klucker, and senior forward Maddie Clarke.
LaPorta (9.1 points per game last season) said the forwards and posts expect to be strong rebounding and give the guards plenty of extra scoring chances.
“I think we just really need to do our jobs, getting the rebounds and making our layups and doing everything we can,” LaPorta said.
While Highland did average almost 58 points per game and scored fairly well, defense was their calling card last season. And again this year, the Lady Bulldogs expect to hang their hats on defense.
“I think it’s still our defense, I feel like our five girls together on the floor at a time defensively making the other team’s life as hard as they can and that leads into our offense getting some steals and transition stuff,” Hamilton said.
One major difference coming into the season is the team’s comfort level with Hamilton and his staff. Having a full offseason of conditioning, meetings, and workouts has allowed the team to be miles ahead of a year ago in terms of knowing Hamilton’s system.
“I think we’re very comfortable with him (Hamilton) coaching us and telling us what we need to do (now) and we’re excited to have him as (our) coach again,” LaPorta said. “We’re just a lot more comfortable with him and we know what he expects, so we try to do that every day.”
All in all, the Lady Bulldogs hope for a strong regular season and deep playoff run after after losing the regional championship game to Mater Dei 57-51 in February.
“This senior class has had a lot of success when they were freshman and sophomores, so last year we had a great year but struggled in the postseason with Mater Dei,” Hamilton said. “I think they are kind of itching to get back in there and get that taste out of their mouths.”
Highland opens the season at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21, with a first-round game against Centralia in the Salem Thanksgiving Tournament.