Caleb Riordan | Ameritime Sports Writer
The Hillsboro Hawks Girls Varsity Basketball team is set to begin their new season. They finished with a record of 4-21 last year. They lost Abby Cole and Alicen Dietrich from the team, but return Zoe Wood, Maya LaPlante and Sophia Horrell. Head Coach Andrew Hubbard is tasked with the challenge of taking this team to the next level.
Wood returns as the team’s leading scorer. She averaged 5.7 points per game and shot 70 percent from the field. LaPlante was second, and right behind Wood at 5.6 points per game. She also averaged three rebounds and shot 53 percent from the field. Horrell was fourth on the team in scoring and averaged 4.9 points per game. The Hawks will also get a boost from the return of Senior Payton Bingman, who missed last season due to injury, but has been medically cleared to play.
“I don’t feel we have one or two key players,” Hubbard said. “I think we will need to count on every girl we have on our team especially this year with everything that is going on. Each player has a role and they have to be prepared when they get into the game to do their role the best they can.”
This Hawks squad has room to grow. Their goal for the year is simple: get better.
“My expectations are to build on last year and to see growth at the end of the season,” Hubbard said. “This season we are a relatively young team in terms of varsity minutes so I want to see us grow and learn from each game and each practice. I expect my girls to get better each and every day and I feel as long as we do that then we will be able to have a successful season.”
Hard work is not something taken lightly with this team. It is an expectation and one of their greatest strengths.
“We work hard every day on defense and building the consistent effort that we want and the girls have done a great job so far,” Hubbard said. “Getting consistency to me is always going to be a work in progress. We have times that we look really good in practice and times that are tough so we have to keep working to become consistent on offense and defense.”
Their schedule could potentially bring many challenges. They have a home and home series scheduled with each team in their conference. At a minimum, they will play each team in their conference twice. That number could go up depending on the tournament and post-season meetings. Consistency is something that this team strives for internally. That can only help them in this unique conference schedule.
Improvement from last season is more than attainable for this team. They have the ability to improve not only in the win column but individually as well. The test begins Monday, Nov. 30 in the Fountain City classic tournament.
