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Basketball girls start season with scrimmage

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By Donnie A. Lucas

Scrimmage action for the Lady Lions basketball team started this week, with the regular season set to start next week, pitting the JV girls against Graham on Nov. 12 and the varsity against Newcastle Nov. 16.

On the boys side, action will be limited due to the football playoffs, but a team combined with some JV and a few varsity players will open the season at the Woodson Tournament scheduled to start Nov. 22.

The girls, who also are playing with a combined team while the volleyball playoffs continue, took the court for the first time on Tuesday, scrimmaging a team from Graham.

“The scrimmage went well,” girls coach Tate Thompson said. “We did some really good things, and I also identified some areas that we need to work on.”

The coach commended the younger players for stepping up to complete the roster.

The Lady Lions finished second in district last season, advancing to the second round of the playoffs before losing to Sundown.

The coach said that he lost one senior off last year’s team, but will also be short a couple of experienced players who have commitments to college softball and will not be able to play.

“We are returning six girls from last year’s varsity,” Thompson said. “But I have three or four who will be moving up to the varsity level from last year’s JV.”

Currently, the coach is expecting a total of 15 girls participating in basketball season, which he said is barely enough to have a varsity and a JV.

“It will depend on how many girls come out after volleyball ends and if we can stay healthy whether or not we can have two teams,” he said. “We are certainly going to try to play a JV schedule.”

The coach stressed that with numbers already low, the success of the program may well depend on players avoiding injuries.

The Lady Lions will once again be part of District 8-2A, along with Cross Plains, Haskell, Hawley, Roscoe, and Stamford.

“It will be an extremely tough district again this year,” Thompson said. “Haskell and Stamford will both be strong again. I think there will be some upsets and unexpected wins among the district teams.”

Boys Outlook

Boys head coach Ryder Peacock isn’t worried as much about numbers, but rather when he will get players on the court.

Albany has advanced deep into the football playoffs in recent years, typically preventing the varsity from competing at full strength until the Christmas break.

Peacock reported that he is expecting over 35 players at the high school level, which provides enough players for three teams.

Currently, there are four or five players in the off-season program who have been working on basketball. They are expected to be joined by a dozen or more when the JV football season ends on Thursday. But the bulk of varsity players will still be practicing football.

“We tried a couple of years ago to have basketball after football practice each day, but it was just too much to put on the guys,” he said. “We will wait until football ends to play our varsity.”

He did say that he will have a JV team play the varsity schedule until the full team can join them.

Albany graduated six seniors off of last year’s squad that finished second in district behind Stamford. The Lions played two rounds in the playoffs before falling to Sundown.

“We have four guys returning from the varsity last year who all got a lot of playing time and are critical to the team,” he said. “I’ll be bringing up about seven more who have been playing in the system. We will be a different team, but I think we will be competitive.”