By Mark Carpenter-
Thankfully, the 2018 election campaign is over, but now the 2018-19 hardwood campaign is upon us for the next five months. All of the local high school and junior high basketball squads are in practice mode, preparing for the long haul of the regular season. Two of those high school girls squads were in action on Wednesday night on their home court in pre-season scrimmages, the Peebles Lady Indians hosting the Minford Lady Falcons, while the North Adams Lady Devils played host to the Greenfield Lady Tigers.
In Peebles, Coach Billie Jo Justice and her troops are coming off a season that saw them advance to the district finals and she has been pleased up to this point with how her squad is progressing towards the upcoming season.
“Things have gone well so far” said Coach Justice. “The girls have been working hard trying to get our intensity level up a little bit and use our speed and athleticism. We lost some of our composure with last year’s seniors so we have to learn how to use the different tools that we have this year.
The scrimmage with Minford was a good first test for the Lady Indians as their visitors were blessed with something that Peebles is lacking-size. “We don’t have a lot of size so we will have to play pretty up-tempo and fast-paced,” said Justice. “That’s kind of the year we are looking at.”
While the Peebles-Minford scrimmage was varsity only, nine miles to the east Coach Rob Davis and his Lady Devils played both JV and varsity quarters with Greenfield. In a change from recent years, Davis will this season be coaching both squads after former JV coach Tony Williams left for a teaching job with the Fairfield Local Schools.
In all on Wednesday night, the JV teams played four eight-minute quarters, with North Adams taking three of four, 8-5, 15-14, 4-5, and 11-8. The two varsity squads played six 10-minute periods on the evening, all of them pretty tight, including a 10-10 tie in the first period of action. Then it went North Adams 25- 19, Greenfield 16- 14, North Adams 22- 18, North Adams 17- 13, and North Adams 28-26.
Coach Davis’ team is also coming off a district finals appearance and he was happy overall with how his girls performed in their first pre-season outing.
“It’s rough when you lose seven seniors and we have a lot of young kids coming back but overall I was pleased,” said Davis. “I was real happy with our defense, our pressure was good and our man looked good at time but we still have to work on some fundamental things. We struggled to score at times but we are a more guard-oriented team this season, with not as much size.”
‘Our JV girls did some good things tonight. They were nervous with the game and with having me as their new coach. Me coaching both is a little stressful at times, but it’s a learning process. Our JV will be small but they will play hard.”
The Lady Indians will be in scrimmage action again on Nov. 14 at Lucasville Valley, Nov. 17 at Paint Valley, then at home with Greenfield on Nov. 21.
North Adams was on the road at Bethel on Nov. 9, then at Piketon on Nov. 17.
The annual Southern Hills Athletic Conference Girls Basketball Previews will be hosted at Peebles High School on Nov. 16, beginning at 5 p.m.