By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Last season featured some peaks and valleys for the Carthage girls basketball team, which played well in the Pink & White Classic and in a tournament in Pittsburg, Kan. but finished the year with four-straight losses and an 11-16 record.
“When we played fast and free we were a much better team,” head coach Scott Moore said. “When we didn’t play with the right energy and enthusiasm we came out on the losing end of more games than we should have.”
Moore said he loved his team’s personality during the summer and said the team bonded well and had a lot of success at the Drury team camp. That experience may have opened the Tigers’ eyes to the possibility of better things to come this season.
“The COC is as loaded as ever so we can’t rest on what we did this summer to help us win games when we get into the conference season,” Moore said. “We’ll need to have picked up our level of play at least two notches by the time we get into conference play.”
Carthage returns four starters from last year including senior standout Kianna Yates, who was a first team selection in the Central Ozark Conference and was also named to the All-District team in Class 6 District 5. She averaged 16.9 points per game along with 6.1 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 3.1 steals and will be starting for the fourth year at point guard.
She racked up 85 steals last year alone and already owns the school record for career steals. She scored her 1,000th point in early February and could make a run for the school scoring record, too.
“She’s the conductor that drives our engine,” Moore said. “I used to call her the engine, now I’m going to call her the conductor. She does all the little things that make us a great team and she does a lot of the big things that make us a great team. This year we need a few of the younger players to step up and share some of that burden so that Kianna can be a little more free to do more scoring for us in the open court.”
Senior Landry Cochran returns as a post player and the team’s silent leader. She scored 3.1 points per game last year and grabbed 3.2 rebounds and will be expected to anchor the defense this season as a two-year starter.
“She doesn’t necessarily stuff the stat sheets but her impact on the team is immeasurable because she makes sure that we’re all set in our place correctly, we’re setting our defense correctly and she’s the one who will pick up the slack if somebody makes a mistake,” Moore said.
Sophomores Maggie Boyd and Lauren Choate are the other two returning starters. Boyd will play the three position for the Tigers; she averaged 6.4 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.1 steals last season. Choate will play the two spot; she averaged 7.8 points, 2.2 rebounds and shot better than 33 percent from three-point range.
“Maggie will be our major energy source this year,” Moore said. “Her intensity on both ends of the floor will propel us to get easy buckets on offense and limit the other team getting baskets on the defensive end. She’ll be our primary on-ball defender and will also be asked to increase her scoring output from last year. Lauren is a natural sniper and her ability to find openings to get a three-point shot off is impressive at an early age. Teams will know that she is ‘the shooter’ every time we play them so she’ll need to add a more effective off-the-dribble game to really take her skillset to the next level.”
The last remaining starting spot will likely go to sophomore Zye Clark. She impressed the coaching staff with her maturity over the summer and Moore said she’s well-suited to the team’s up-tempo style of play. She saw action in 13 games last season and averaged nearly two rebounds in just five minutes per game.
Sophomore Jaidyn Brunnert will be in the mix for big minutes at the post position after appearing in six games last season. She’s got the ability to shoot from three-point range and also battle in the post, making her a valuable asset to the varsity lineup. Sophomore Lexa Youngblood played in nine games last season and will provide depth to the point guard position and a scoring punch off the bench. Junior Trisha Kanas is a guard who played in 16 games last year and could become a major contributor.
Carthage will travel to McAuley Catholic for a jamboree on Nov. 15 before opening the season at Hillcrest on Nov. 22. The Lady Tigers Invitational is set for Dec. 1-3, and Carthage will again compete in the Pink & White and Pittsburg tournaments.
“I’m really excited about the potential of this team,” Moore said. “I think we’ll be very fun to watch. We will play very fast on offense and defense. The girls really want to do that so we will need to get in shape to play the way they want to play. The sophomore group has had a lot of success in the past at their age level but now we need to see how they can handle it at the varsity level against several different age groups. We’ve got two solid leaders in Kianna and Landry and the sophomores are happy to follow those leaders because they know they’ll lead them in the right direction.”