Mt. Vernon senior Harley Daniels talks about the cancellation of the basketball season

Last week, Mount Vernon announced that it would cancel the rest of its girls basketball season due to a lack of players.

The Lady Mountaineers began the year with just ten players. Three decided to stop playing before two more were injured. That left the team trying to play games with just five players, most of whom were underclassmen.

KY3 Sports spoke with the team’s only senior over the weekend. Harley Daniels said at one point her team needed to play part of a game with only four players because of an additional injury. She says the school met with the players and coaches to hear their input before making the decision to cancel the remaining games.

Haley says she told the school she wanted to keep playing, but understands and agrees with the school’s decision to protect the remaining players from further injury.

“I always wanted to continue playing. I never was not wanting to play,” Harley said. “But with their decision not to play. I completely agreed with it still, and especially with the rest of [the team] being underclassmen, it’s like, ‘why risk getting injured and trying to play five [with] players?’ And we’re also a lot of multi-sport athletes because we had quite a few girls on the basketball team that also play softball. So would it be in the best interest to like, risk them getting injured and then not be able to play softball [when] it comes time?”

Harley also said she found it to be physically taxing in trying to play with limited players.

“If we get into injury trouble again., play with four. If we get into foul trouble, we play with four or three possibly if somebody goes out with an injury,” Harley said. “Referees did try to help with the fouling out part, but it makes the game even tougher on the body because you have to endure a lot more when they aren’t calling everything.

Harley shared a post on her Twitter page Monday about the cancellation of the remaining games.