The Kentridge High girls basketball team returns to the court after a successful season that included a final 16 state showing.
Coach Bob Sandall, now in his fifth year, expects the Chargers to do even better this season.
In addition to his eight veteran deep team, Sandall adds junior LaDrea Ford, freshman Morgan Gary and sophomore Taylor Jenkins.
The newcomers provide depth that has allowed Sandall to round out the team.
“The four younger kids we have are all solid contributors,” says Sandall. “The key is the roles. The kids are starting to understand that they’ll be able to contribute differently at different points of the year.”
Gary, the only freshman on the team, has already shown potential as a standout player.
“She’s solid, she’s a really good physical, strong athlete,” says Sandall. “A quick learner.”
One of the benefits of fielding such an experienced team is that the girls already know how to work best together. On the other hand, having such a deeply ingrained play style leaves not much to work on but tweaking and fine-tuning the performance.
“Like every team, you always want to shoot a little bit better, you want to handle the ball better,” says Sandall. “You have a game where you turn the ball over 10 times and you wish it had been five or a game where you turn it over 20 times you wish it had been 10. We don’t have any glaring weaknesses to overcome, we just need to get better all around.”
The Chargers are off to a 5-1 start and have taken down some of their heavier rivals in the South Puget Sound League North Division. They are tied for first place with Kentlake.
It was a defeat to Kentlake on Dec. 9 that exposed the biggest issue with their play, Sandall says. The girls are good at running their positions and executing when they’re not under pressure, but when another team pushes back, they run in to trouble.
“Being able to be better at running our offense and running our sets when we get stopped. Teams can square you up defensively and make you work for the baskets, can you execute when you have to do that,” says Sandall. “Good teams, they’re very unforgiving when you make mistakes.”
Overcoming that adversity and getting everyone working together will be the key factors this year.
“We’ve got a lot of parts, it’s just a matter of getting them in the right spot where the kids are most effective,” Sandall says.
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