(Griswold) The Griswold Tigers will open the basketball season on Monday by hosting SW Valley.
Girls head coach Chris Hamilton admits it’s hard to know what to expect with such a young team, but they’ll try to hang their hat on defense. “The expectation would be that our defense is much stronger than it has been in the past. Hopefully that keeps us in games and makes us competitive.”
The Tigers have only a couple of proven veterans returning. Brenna Rossell averaged 6.2 points and 4.6 rebounds per game last season and McKenna Weichman averaged 8.1 points with 2.1 steals per game. “Brenna Rossell will definitely be one of the stars of our team and then McKenna Weichman.” Hamilton says, “Those two girls have really played a lot of basketball. They really understand the game well and I think they’ll have a great season.”
This season presents an opportunity for several players to take advantage of bigger roles on the team. “Karly Millikan in the post along with Emma Mundorf will both be very strong for us. I think they’ll be the keys to our defense. We have senior Abby Tye. Last year was her first year out and she had a transformation this year to really become a varsity level player.”
Beyond that, several freshman have a chance to make an early impact. “We have a strong freshman class. It’ll be interesting to see who steps up. If all holds as good as practice has gone so far I think we’ll definitely be seeing some freshmen playing varsity this year.”
The team has put in a lot of work in during the early season practices and coach Hamilton is excited to see how that pays off. Coach Hamilton says he likes the intensity he’s seen from his group. “We get after it. It’s constant basketball drills, constant running. We are trying to get in better shape than we’ve ever been before so hopefully we can play a higher pace than we ever have. The girls have really taken to that and given everything they’ve got. I’m proud of them for doing that. It’s going to change a lot on our team. Our game habits will reflect the way we’ve been practicing.”
Griswold coach Chris Hamilton:
