By Riley Bean
The Rogersville Lady Wildcats won the COC-Small basketball title last year, for the first time in a decade. They made a run in the district tournament before eventually falling to Hillcrest in the district championship game.
This year, Rogersville returns a pair of all-conference guards in senior Sarah Jordan and junior Hailey Brown.
Jordan (13.8 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 1.1 APG, 1.0 SPG) earned first-team honors and Brown (7.6 PPG, 1.9 RPG, 3.0 APG, 1.5 SPG) earned second-team honors last year. Both are poised to make just as big of an impact this season.
“Sarah brings consistency to the table,” said head coach Denny McHenry. “We are working on her perimeter shooting, but know with the lack of size that we have she must continue to improve on her post game.
“I look for Hailey to have a break out year,” he continued. “She is a tremendous softball player so she hasn’t been in the gym a lot this fall. We need her to be more consistent from the outside and to improve in her ability to find the open girl.”
With a guard-heavy team, the Lady Wildcats will look to 5’9” senior forward Sarah Posey to provide a presence in the paint. Posey was one of the team’s best “lock down defenders” last year according to coach McHenry.
“Sarah Posey had a great defensive year for us and has the ability to guard both big and small,” McHenry said. “Sarah will probably have to play more inside this year due to our lack of size.”
The team will call upon another 5’9” player in sophomore Maci McHenry to help make up for their height deficiencies.
The tandem of Jordyn and Jenna Gault will round out the Rogersville backcourt and provide perimeter shooting. Jordyn played in every game last year as a freshman and averaged 1.5 steals per game. Senior Jenna Gault missed the entire season due to a knee injury, so she will be hungry to play this season.
“Jenna Gault is back after a year recovering from an ACL injury,” McHenry said. “Jenna is a good outside shooter. Jordyn Gault has had a great off season and we look for her to continue her good play from the end of last year when she gave us great minutes off the bench as a freshman. Jordyn is our most consistent outside shooter and has the ability to drive it to the basket.”
Rogersville will look to build off of the conference title last year. They hope to contend once again for a district title with hopes of making the Class 4 state tournament.
“We continue to make our schedule more demanding in order to ready us for the end of the season,” said McHenry. “We would like to continue our success in conference play and take the next step in competing for a district championship.”
