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Washington Evening Journal
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Williamsburg girls primed for another great season
Six key players return from last season’s state tournament run
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
WILLIAMSBURG — After a three-year ascension, the Raiders are coming off their best season in program history.
The Williamsburg girls basketball team went 24-3 last season, concluding with a Class 3A state semifinal appearance.
The Raiders return six of their eight main rotation players from that team and begin their quest to get back to the state tournament.
The Raiders are ranked No. 2 in The Gazette preseason poll, but they aren’t viewing the outside expectations as an added pressure.
“I feel it’s almost a confidence booster, senior Kennedy Skaggs said.
”We’ve worked really hard, so I like seeing us high on that ranking list,“ senior Zoe Allen said.
Expect the Raiders also to be highly placed in the first official rankings from the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union.
Once a mostly young team, the Raiders have four key returners this year who are upperclassmen, and the other two got plenty of experience as freshmen.
“We’ve always been a young team, but we’ve all grown up a bit now together,” Skaggs said.
Skaggs and Allen, now seniors, will look to level up their games after solid junior campaigns while stepping into bigger leadership roles.
Skaggs was second on the team in three-point shots made last season, with 36. Now that top three-pointer shooter Carly Rich has graduated, look for Skaggs to shoot with more of a green light this year while adding to her offensive game.
“I feel like I’m going to get scouted as a three-point shooter again this year, so I’m working on putting the ball on the floor more. If they close out on me hard, I have that drive as well,” said Skaggs.
Allen was an efficient player in the post last season, shooting 52.6% from the field for 10.9 points per game.
“During AAU season I worked a lot on my pull up game and my threes,” Allen said about where she’s aiming to improve.
Other key returners include Ava Hocker, Channing Becker, Taylor Sanchez and Kylee Suhr.
Becker, a sophomore, will step into the starting point guard role this season.
“It’ll take some time when you lose a player like Carly who wanted the ball when the clock winds down,” fourth-year head coach Stephanie Dacey said. “My hope is Channing takes that load, but it may take some time to get comfortable with.”
Hocker, who was a unanimous WaMaC West selection last season, will continue to make a big impact on the defensive side while adding more scoring production this season.
With a similar rotation to last season, other players also will have an opportunity to step into a role and get playing time.
“We’re going to unique in the sense that sometimes we’re going to have Zoe and Kylee playing together, both as bigs” Dacey said of potential lineups. “It’ll be about finding the right mix with our shooters.”
When asked what areas the Raiders want to improve on this season, the answer was offensive rebounding and defensive pressure.
“We’ve talked about it since the beginning of practice,” Allen said. “We want to be an offensive rebounding team this year and go after every board.”
From a team that ranked in the top 10 in 3A in steals last season, defense was certainly a focus on day two of official practice Tuesday.
“We are going to continue to get better at our defensive pressure,” Dacey said.
As the season gets underway, the Raiders will set their sights on focusing on the things they can control every day.
“The three biggest things we talked about coming into the first day was controlling our attitude, effort and our talking,” Skaggs said.
“We’re always working on being confident in one another, and we always believe in each other. It’s about embracing our different roles.”
The team will have this week and next week to practice before its first game Nov. 25 against 4A Cedar Rapids Xavier.
“Energy-wise its been great,” Dacey said of the first few practices. “We’re all competing and making each other better.”
Playing in the WaMaC and having non-conference opponents such as Xavier, Iowa City Liberty and Dallas Center-Grimes, the Raiders will be tested and ready once the postseason arrives.
“We still have that same level of energy and fun, so that helps keeping the pressure off,” Allen said. “We always mediate in the locker room before games and practices and it helps us stay focused.”
