The Conway girls finished one game over .500 in coach Jared O’Quinn’s first season at 13-12. He will have to replace two graduated all-conference players including leading scorer and rebounder Olivia Dill.
One all-conference player does return in Cassie Vestal who was honorable mention all-conference last season. She is the team’s top returning scorer who averaged 9 points per game last year.
“Cassie had a great summer and has worked really hard this offseason to improve her production to not only score but to be our leader on the defensive side of the ball as well,” O’Quinn said. “Cassie has the ability to score at all three levels and her basketball IQ is really high, I feel she can be one of the better players in the Summit conference this season.”
Senior Halee Tucker is a returning two-year starter.
Seven total letterwinners return as well. In addition to Vestal and Tucker, Lilly Thurman, Emily Lewis, Haley Williams Alexa Higbee and Lakyn Shelton will provide varsity production.
“These girls all gained valuable experience last season and will be asked to expand their roles this year. This is a great group of girls who work really hard and are great teammates,” O’Quinn said.
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Sophomores Brooke Dill and Sydney Ward along with freshmen Brandi Sloan, Jameson Cromer and Graceson Cromer will be newcomers to the varsity squad.
“This group will all look to help give us more depth, athleticism and they have been great in adding even more competition in practice,” O’Quinn said.”
The Conway girls will be a deep and quick squad that needs to find consistent offense to replace graduated production.
“Our strength this season will be our team speed and overall depth especially at the guard position. Practices right now are really competitive as we are trying to not only define our roles but also compete for playing time as well,” O’Quinn said. “We will need to be more consistent offensively. We lost a lot of production from last season but feel as our roles and strengths come more defined that this will improve as the season progresses.”
The roster has changed from last year, but expectations have not.
“We want our program to establish that expectations don’t change from year to year; we expect our student-athletes to represent themselves and their teammates in a positive manner,” O’Quinn said. “Our players have put a lot of time in this offseason are looking forward to the task of representing our school and our community. The identity of this team 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.”
Conway opens the season on Nov. 26 at Ava.
