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Uncertainty again facing Lady Hounds
Page 4 • ADAMS COUNTY ‘19 - ‘20 BASKETBALL SPECIAL BY MARK CARPENTER PEOPLE’S DEFENDER
Abbott and Costello did the famous “Who’s on First?� routine and for the Manchester Lady Hounds basketball program, the routine for their past few season might be deemed “Who’s the Coach?’� After riding a coaching carousel the past few season, hardly able to adapt to one system before another one arrives, the Lady Hounds find themselves in the same situation, but this time one game into the season. After a seasonopening loss to Green, newly hired head coach Brad Cannon turned in his resignation and again, the Lady Hounds are looking for leadership on the sidelines until the school administration
finds a permanent replacement for the upcoming campaign. Whoever that new coach might be, he or she will certainly not be at a loss for talent. The Lady Hounds went 13-9 a season ago, winning a Division IV sectional championship under head coach Shawn Palmer, and were eliminated in the district semis in a tough battle with number one seeded Waterford. The 2019-20 Manchester roster could still be considered a young one, with but two seniors listed, and will return their two leading scorers in junior Brooke Kennedy and sophomore McKenzie Morrison. Kennedy averaged a double-double last season (13.3, 11.1) and was named All-Conference,
Second Team AllDistrict, plus All-Ohio Honorable Mention, and will soon be approaching the 1,000 point mark for her outstanding career. Morrison was Third Team All-District last season, putting up 10.5 points game as the team’s point guard. Making up the third of a very athletic Lady Hounds triumvirate is the ultra-athletic sophomore Hannah Hobbs, an outside shooting threat who is also not afraid to take the ball into the paint. Perhaps the biggest outside shooting threat for the Manchester squad is junior Emily Sweeney as well as senior Taylor Morrison, as the Lady Hounds are a team whose outside shooting proficiency will keep opposing defenses honest.
Providing the muscle in the paint will be junior Yasmin Lucas, who is definitely not afraid to mix it up with the big gals, and whose improvement will be a key to the team’s success. The Lady Hounds will also have some important contributors coming off the bench who will see significant minutes, and
those include senior Madison Jones, junior Karigan Turner, sophomores Kileigh Mitchell and Sophia Paul, as well as freshman Ashleigh Dunn. In their preseason poll, the coaches of the Southern Hills Athletic Conference picked the Lady Hounds to finish second in the small
school division behind Peebles, a team they were set to face in their second regular season game on Dec. 2. How it all plays out for the Manchester squad may well be decided at the MLSD Dec. 11 board meeting, when a new head coach will be named.
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After big losses, Dragons still look to be in the hunt
ADAMS COUNTY ‘19 - ‘20 BASKETBALL SPECIAL • Page 9
BY MARK CARPENTER PEOPLE’S DEFENDER
After a successful debut as the West Union Dragons head coach, Austin Kingsolver returns for year number two of his tenure, looking to compete despite taking some serious hits to graduation after last season. The 2018-19 Dragons finished 13-12 overall and made a nice tournament run, winning a Division III sectional title before dropping a heartbreaking 53-50 contest to Chesapeake in the district semi-finals in Athens. Now, Kingsolver, who will handle both the varsity and JV coaching duties this season, is optimistic about this year’s squad, after losing six seniors (four starters) to graduation. “We’re bringing back just one starter and our sixth man,� says Kingsolver. “We lost a majority of our scoring when we lost Ryan Rothwell, Bowan Tomlin, and Conner Campbell.� Even with those hits, Coach Kingsolver still expects his squad to be competitive, beginning with the return of senior Zane Kingsolver and sophomore Cameron Campbell. Kingsolver, the head coach’s younger brother, provided one of the deadliest inside-outside threats in the area, whole Campbell really amped it up at the end of last season and will step in his brother’s shoes
as the team’s point guard. “Cameron will have the ball in his hands nearly every possession so he controls how fast we go on offense and anyone who watched us last year knows that we don’t like to go slow,� said the WUHS head coach. “Zane is transitioning into like a “Stretch 4� or “Stretch 3� type of player, after playing the 5� spot his entire high school career.� Now we have to get the ball in his hands on offense as much as he will have to handle the ball against pressure and then pull double duty and crash the boards as our best rebounder.� After Campbell and Kingsolver, the head coach explains that he has four more boys that he feels like he can interchange at any time in junior Clayton Jones, senior Brycen Staten, junior Braxton Blanton, and senior Dakota Jarvis. “Dakota is our center, he’ll rebound and be a nice player inside as he can jump really well and is a very smart player,� says Kingsolver. “Brycen is kind of the opposite, more physical and can beat you up that way so we can go a couple of ways there. Brycen can also step out and shoot a little bit too. Clayton has developed into a decent shooter and is getting more physical and needs to work on being a better defender and he will help us a lot.
He and Braxton have bought into their roles really well, with Braxton bringing us some size and athleticism. Braxton plays harder and controls the intensity on the floor more than he even knows.� Also part of the varsity rotation at some point will be junior Phillip Jarvis, whom Kingsolver describes as a “nice shooter off the bench� along with senior Steven Runyan, whose Michael Jordan-esque story had him being cut from the team in the seventh grade before returning to the program. “Steven came back and has played all four years of high school,� said Kingsolver. “We will probably go about seven deep to begin the season and hopefully work in an eighth as the year goes on. We’ll have to be in good shape to go with just seven and with the way we are going to run on offense. That’s what our kids are comfortable with and this is the most coachable group of kids I’ve ever had. We still have to get better defensively, something we haven’t done well in the preseason. We will mix it up on defense, press the entire game hopefully, but we have to be more physical.� In the preseason poll of the Southern Hills Athletic Conference coaches, West Union was picked to finish fourth in the big school division, bulletin board
Thank Thank you you for for stopping ssttopping by this this year. year.
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material for Kingsolver and his squad. “A lot of that has to do with the fact that we lost four starters,� says Kingsolver. “I told the kids that it wasn’t a big deal but
the kids use it as motivation when people think they are supposed to lose.� “For us to be successful this year, we have to be more physical and disciplined on defense, every-
thing revolves around our defense. We might score 65 points one night and 35 the next, but if we play defense, we’ll be in every single game.�
Good Luck to all Teams
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