As the girls start their 2016-2017 basketball season, new and old players alike are practicing extremely hard to make this season as successful as their previous seasons.
With an 8-15 record, they made it to the first round of playoffs in the previous season. The team lost the following four seniors, the same amount of players they lost from the last season: Mia Vogel, Deanna Drobka, Courtney Susan and Courtney Boehmer.
When losing players, a team will be affected. They lose each player’s skills and the qualities they brought to the team; however, they gain new attributes and skills when the new players join the team.
“The team goal is the same as it’s always been. We always want to make it to playoffs and have a winning season. Hopefully, we return to playoffs for the fourth year in a row this year,” captain Bailey Prell said, who has been playing basketball since the fourth grade and is in her third year playing for Freedom.
Along with Prell, returning players for this season include junior Lanijah Mitchell and sophomores Marydeth Feits, Alexsia Barlamas, Chloe Keller and Taylor Greene. Mackenzie Moldovan is the only senior to play on the team this season.
“We have one senior in [this year]. Mackenzie Moldovan [brings] athleticism and she is able to be used in multiple positions,” coach John Kaercher said.
With the lack of many senior leaders, this season will mostly be led by the juniors on the team. This is an odd thing that the team will not be losing a larger chunk of players at the end of the season. This is the first time in the last three years that there has been less than four seniors on the team.
Along with Moldovan, five new players joined the team this season. The returning players are optimistic to see what the new players can bring to the team. The new members of the team are juniors Siarra Corfield and Alexis Ball and freshmen Morgan Swab, Ella Walden and Myah Hrinko.
“I think that our new players will be a great addition to the team. They are very skilled and have a great attitude toward this team and this season. I am very excited to see what they have to bring to the table and how they will perform during games,” Prell said.
“They are going to add to the overall quickness and bring basketball IQ along with them,” Kaercher said.
Kaercher, who is starting his fifth season as the head coach, also has a hopeful outlook on this season. In the past three out of the four seasons Kaercher has been coaching, the girls have went to playoffs, and it’s the goal, for him and the other coaches, to get the girls back there again this season.