Golden Eagles look to improved scoring to compete in OCC Capital Division girls basketball race

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

While Big Walnut’s girls bas­ket­ball team’s pluses — good size, good defense, team chem­istry — out­weigh its minuses, the one weak­ness, scor­ing, stands between the Golden Eagles and a suc­cess­ful season.

“We have good size, we will be good defen­sively and our team chem­istry is good, we need some­one to step up and improve our scor­ing if we are to be suc­cess­ful this sea­son,” said vet­eran Big Wal­nut head coach Bob Scott who will be assisted by Gary Miller and Frank Turner on the side­lines this season.

Scott, who led Big Wal­nut to a 13–10 (7–7 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion) record last sea­son, thanks to a 10–5 season-ending run to fin­ish three games over the .500 mark, will look to five return­ing let­ter win­ners to carry the Golden Eagles’ for­tunes dur­ing the 2012–13 campaign.

Back are senior for­ward Emily Chucta, the team’s lone two-year let­ter win­ner, along senior guards Saman­tha Klinedinst and Stephanie Adkins and junior posts Sky­lar Fleak and Sara Petty. Klinedinst, Adkins, Fleak and Petty return as one-year let­ter winners.

Fleak, who was hon­ored as Big Walnut’s top inside player with the Lead­ing Rebounder Award, returns as the Golden Eagles’ top scor­ing threat after aver­ag­ing 7.3 points per game as a sopho­more last sea­son. She was rec­og­nized as an Hon­or­able Men­tion All-OCC and Hon­or­able Men­tion Dis­trict 11 performer.

Lost to grad­u­a­tion were the Golden Eagles’ top two point pro­duc­ers in for­ward Megan Wal­ters (203 points in 21 games/9.7 ppg) and point guard Kayleigh Ham­mond (146 points in 20 games/7.3 ppg). Wal­ters, who was rec­og­nized as a First Team Dis­trict 11 and Hon­or­able Men­tion All-OCC selec­tion, was hon­ored with the Lead­ing Scorer Award. Ham­mond, who was selected a Sec­ond Team Dis­trict 11 and All-OCC choice, was the recip­i­ent of the Golden Eagle Award. Guard Calen Williams received the Coaches Award.

Scott, who has a 152–110 (.580) record in 13 sea­sons at Big Wal­nut, will look to four new­com­ers up from the Golden Eagle junior var­sity squad to con­tribute this sea­son. Mov­ing up are junior guards Leah Shaw and Han­nah Sewell along with sopho­more guards Makenna Ham­mond and Erica Boehm.

Key holes in the Golden Eagle lineup that need to be addressed include fill­ing the vacancy at point guard and find­ing a scor­ing threat. Adkins and Boehm are the lead­ing can­di­dates to take over for Ham­mond who was a two-year starter at point guard.

“Stephanie and Erica are the front run­ners at the point,” Scott said. “As far as find­ing some­one to lead us in the scor­ing col­umn, we may have to look at mul­ti­ple play­ers to get the job done.”

Last sea­son, Big Wal­nut outscored its oppo­nents 984 to 870, aver­ag­ing 42.8 points-per-game while allow­ing their oppo­nents only 37.8 points-per-game. In the Cen­tral Dis­trict Tour­na­ment, the Golden Eagles allowed only 103 points in three games (34.3 ppg) while scor­ing 135 points (45.0 ppg) in win­ning two of their three post­sea­son starts

Look­ing ahead to the upcom­ing OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion cam­paign, Scott sees defend­ing cham­pion Olen­tangy Orange (14–0) and new­comer Olen­tangy as favorites to bat­tle for the title. New Albany (12–2), which returns all five starters, is expected to con­tend if the Eagles stay healthy. Hilliard Bradley, which was replaced by Olen­tangy in the Cap­i­tal Divi­sion, placed third with a 9–5 mark.

“We must be able to com­pete with all three teams if we are to attain our goal of a league cham­pi­onship,” said Scott.

Scott’s keys for a suc­cess­ful 2012–13 cam­paign? Stay healthy, increase scor­ing, guard play and improve free throw shooting.

Big Wal­nut opens its sea­son on Fri­day, Novem­ber 30 in an OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion road game at Franklin Heights. Tip-off time is 7:30 p.m. The Golden Eagles open their home slate on Tues­day, Decem­ber 4, with Lick­ing Heights at 7:30 p.m.

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.