Jared O’Quinn takes over as the head coach of the Conway girls this season. The Lady Bears went 6-19 last season, but lose just one starter and one letterman from last season.
First-team all-conference senior Olivia Dill will lead the Lady Bears this season after averaging 14.7 points and eight rebounds per game last season.
“Olivia is a great all-around player and continues to work on and improve her overall game,” O’Quinn said. “Her leadership and ability to motivate her teammates is one outstanding and I expect her to have a great season.”
Fellow senior Maddie Archer is also back. She was the third-leading scorer for Conway last season and led the team in made three-pointers and three-point field goal percentage.
These two seniors will be key leaders this year.
“Our leadership and our overall team depth is something we will rely heavily on this season. This depth makes our practices highly competitive and hopefully will allow us to do different things on both the offensive and defensive ends,” O’Quinn said.
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Haley Tucker also returns as a key defensive cog in her junior season.
“Haley is a really good athlete that is a great finisher around the rim and has the ability to shoot the basketball as well,” O’Quinn said. “Haley is our best all-around defender and will be asked to guard the other team’s best player every night.”
Sophomore Cassie Vestal was the team’s second-leading scorer at 8.6 points per game last season as a freshman. She will run the point again this year.
Conway will work on better overall communication as a team this year.
“I think our communication and our decision making has to be better,” O’Quinn said. “It’s something we are focusing on in practice from day one and we feel if we want to achieve some of our team goals that this must continue to get better all season long.”
Junior Shea Walker along with sophomores Kayla Roth and Lilly Thurman will be new players to watch on the varsity level. Conway is also excited about its incoming freshman class.
O’Quinn wants to set a tone for Conway girls basketball here in his first season as head coach.
“We want our program to establish that expectations don’t change from year to year; we expect our student/athletes to represent our great school in a positive manner. Our seniors are looking forward to the task of leading their teammates on and off the court. Our identity is associated with how hard we work on and off the court. As a team, we know we have to outwork our opponents each and every game to achieve our goals and that is our mindset from day one,” O’Quinn said.
Conway opens the season on Nov. 20 at Willow Springs.
