Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Second-year head coach Delmarr Pope is looking at nearly an entirely new varsity roster this season.
“This year our main focus is really rebuilding and putting in those good practice habits and daily habits of girls understanding the importance of the work ethic needed every day,” he said. “We’re focusing on defense and the little things such as rebounding, boxing out, hustling, and communication. We're really hitting that stuff really, really hard this season.”
The Eagles have two seniors, including the team’s lone returning starter, Tori Cousino, and Graycie Gladieux, who is currently recovering from a knee injury.
Cousino was a Second Team All-NLL selection in the Cardinal Division last year. She was also all-conference in golf and lacrosse.
“She’s pretty athletic in pretty much everything she does,” Pope said. “She’s going to have a heavy load on her shoulders, but I think she’s handling it very well. She’s unselfish. She wants to get everybody involved first.
“This season our focus is making sure that she looks to be a little bit more selfish and tries to get herself motivated and going first. I love the fact she loves to get her teammates involved, but we want to try to get her at least 10 to 12 shots a game, keep her engaged, and make sure that she's leading this pack by scoring, while also getting everybody else involved with the ball.”
While Pope hopes to have Gladieux back from injury sometime in December, he’s excited about a pair of sophomore post players in Audrey Gibbs and Carlie McGilvray, who he feels will take a huge leap this season.
Claire Martin, a sophomore guard, and a pair of junior guards, Kyla McDonald and Aleah Simon, are also potential contributors.
“All these girls have been locked in pretty much since the season ended last year,” Pope said. “They do other sports, but they still made it a point to get in the gym as much as they can. We had a phenomenal summer. The kickoff to our season has been great so far, playing a lot of good scrimmages and a lot of good competition.”
With a lot of fresh faces on varsity, Pope said his team’s focuses this year will be on the defensive end and getting the ball into the post offensively.
“That’s kind of what we're hanging our hat on — our ability to defend multiple positions,” he said. “We got girls who can play at multiple spots on the defensive side of the ball, but then also our ability to score on the inside. That's what we're really focusing on. Everything is paint touches, trying to get as much as we can towards the basket.”
With that, communication and long-range shooting are two other areas Pope said his team is working on.
“Right now our main focus is communication, making sure our girls are understanding the importance of communicating on both sides of the ball, offense and defense,” he said. “And then also, we're getting a lot of shots up daily. Three-point shooting is not our strength, so we're trying to make sure we lock in on that this season to make that more consistent.”
Pope said his team’s goal is to compete every night and attain a top three finish in their division.
“We’re super excited,” he said. “Practice has been phenomenal. We've been really hitting it hard. The girls are excited and anxious to play. We’re ready to see what we can do and how hard we can compete this season.
“These girls love each other. That's the main thing. We have a huge family dynamic here. Our motto this year is 'whatever it takes.' We got girls willing to do whatever it takes in order to compete and succeed this season.”
