Girls baseketball kicks off with SHAC Preview

By Mark Carpenter

People’s Defender

The 2022-23 girls basketball season got underway at Manchester High School on Friday, November 11 as the Southern Hills Athletic Conference Girls Preview. Although preview nights are notorious for coaches not “showing” anything to other coaches, it is still a night that provides fans a first glimpse of their teams in uniform and also serves as a fund raiser for the conference. The match ups for the preview were determined by an earlier coaches poll.

The opening match up of the night pitted a pair of Adams County squads as the host Lady Hounds matched up for two quarters with the West Union Lady Dragons. The Lady Hounds are led this season by first-year head coach Brandon Hinson who inherits a squad that won just one game last season and lost its leading scorer. Coach Bernie Cropper is back in the saddle as the Lady Dragons’ coach, also looking to fill a number of holes in graduation losses from last season.

The Lady Hounds fielded a preview starting lineup that consisted of senior Ashleigh Dunn, sophomore Maddie Dunn, sophomore Raegan Wikoff, sophomore Gabrielle Arnett and senior Daya Morgan, while the West Union five to begin the preview was senior Payton Stapleton, sophomore Kenzie Stout, sophomore Ashlah Staten, freshman Shekbi Weakley and sophomore Olivia Lewis.

The two young squads put on the most entertaining show of the evening with the Lady Dragons jumping out to an early 12-4 advantage behind the hot hand of Payton Stapleton scored 8 first quarter points. The scoring pace picked up in the second stanza as the intensity grew, even for a preview game as getting things off to a good start appeared very evident for the Lady Hounds. The second period Manchester attack was paced by the scoring of Raegan Wikoff, who fired in 9 points in the frame. Toss in an Ashleigh Dunn three-pointer and the second quarter came right down to the wire, but a later triple form West Union’s Olivia Lewis helped the Lady Dragons hang on for a 22-21 win.

Stapleton led West Union with her 8 points while 13 from Wikoff led the Lady Hounds.

“We’re a very young and inexperienced team,” Coach Hinson stated in his postgame radio spot. “These girls will give 110% every single night and leave it all on the floor and that’s all I ask of them. We may not be that talented but I just want to see that effort. We just have to get everyone involved in our offense and right now our defense will have to create our offense.”

After match ups of Fairfield and Ripley then Eastern Brown and Whiteoak, the next Adams County squad to take the floor was Coach Rob Davis and his North Adams Lady Devils, as they faced off with the Fayetteville Lady Rockets. For the first time in a long time, the Lady Devils are very short on numbers at the high school level with just 10 girls, but you can bet that Coach Davis will get every ounce of effort from everyone on his roster.

For the preview action, Coach Davis sent out a starting five of sophomore Katelynn Boerger, senior Keeyn Hupp, senior Laney Ruckel, junior Harlee Brand and junior Kenlie Jones.

On Friday night, the Lady Devils came out on fire and aiming from long distance, getting a pair of first quarter three-balls from Hupp and another from Brand on their way to a 19-10 advantage. Hupp hit two more from long range in the second period and North Adams got buckets from Boerger and brand plus a pair of Ruckel free throws to lead on the scoreboard 33-20 after the two periods ended. Hupp led the Lady Devils with 14 points in just two quarters while Fayetteville was paced by 7 points from Anne Murphy.

The final county squad to appear on Friday night was the Peebles Lady Indians, under the guidance of second-year head coach Sidney Pell. The coaches of the SHAC have high expectations for the Lady Indians, picking them to win the small school division, which meant they were matched up on Friday with the team picked to win the big school division, the Lynchburg-Clay Lady Mustangs.

Coach Pell’s squad sported a starting five on Friday night of junior Payton Johnson, sophomore Lydia Maddox, senior Lily McFarland, junior Caydence Carroll and sophomore Angel Gray.

Peebles is led by junior guard and defending SHAC Co-Player of the Year Payton Johnson, who picked up wight where she left off last season and scored 10 first quarter points on Friday night for the Lady Indians, who came out of the gates firing. Peebles also got three-pointers in the opening frame from Maddox and McFarland on their way to a 19 9 lead after one. The Lady Indians cooled off a bit in the second quarter, getting another trey from McFarland plus baskets from Carroll and sophomore Abigail Smalley and they made it stand up for a 30-19 preview triumph.

Johnson led the winners with 14 points while Lynchburg was led by Addison West’s 11.

“We’re really excited about this year,” said Coach Pell in her postgame radio interview. “We’re a little young and inexperienced but we’ll play hard. Some of our girls haven’t played a lot of varsity minutes but they’re in the gym every day and wanting to get better. Payton is a special player but we know we have to give her a lot of help and that might be a different girl every night. We only have 11 total kids but all of them can go in and give us valuable minutes if we need them. We have fun every day and the girls don’t want practices to end.”

With one more week of practices.scrimmages, all the county girls squads are gearing up for their regular season debuts. For two of those teams, that will come on Saturday, November 19 in the Manchester Tip-Off Classic. West Union will face New Boston at #;15 p.m. while the host Lady Hounds will tip off at 6:45 p.m., battling the Portsmouth Lady Trojans.

The other two squads will open on Monday, November 21 with North Adams beginning their season with a tough SHAC road contest, traveling to Fairfield while Peebles will host Hillsboro in a non-conference opener. West Union will also be in action on November 21, on the road to face Lynchburg on conference action.