New Look Lady Bucks Set to Go
by Jim Morgan
FARWELL – The 2015-16 Bucktail Lady Bucks basketball team will have to find its own identity this season. For the last four seasons it was Maria Morgan and the Lady Bucks. Now all the teams do not have to worry about one special player. The question around town to head coach Carl Gentzyel and assistant Jim Morgan is how do you replace a player like Morgan?
The answer to that is you don’t! Athletes like Morgan come around once in a lifetime here at Bucktail. She was always two, three and maybe four steps ahead of the play before it even happened. That is something you cannot coach or teach enough for most high chool athletes to understand. But most of all, how do you replace your starting six from last year as they all graduated?
The returning Lady Bucks from last year are seniors Bridget Gardner and Paige Sockman, juniors Hailey Risley, Emalea Mills and sophomore Maira D’Onofrio. The question with these returning Lady Bucks is how much experience did they really receive? They got into the varsity games with last season’s seniors but how often did they touch the basketball and what did they do with it? Someone may ask, what about playing JV? Yes, they did play JV games. But still the speed of the game from JV to Varsity is a step faster.
Coaches Gentzyel and Morgan know it will be a different season from last year. The five girls that are returning will be in some games and these girls are out to prove most people wrong about the Lady Bucks this season. Other players that are returning from last season and are looking up to coaches Gentzyel and Morgan to be successful are juniors Ebonee Spriggs, Amanda Tyrrell and Renee Werts. Sophomores are Anna Cowfer, Malenzi Brennan and Taylor Werts. Freshmen are Bonnie Mills, Jessica Payne, Hunter Stidfole and Sarah Rathmell.
There will not be that special player like Morgan who you could just sit there and watch and wait for her to kick the game into a higher gear. It will be someone different from game to game with this team.
The Lady Bucks will open up this Friday and Saturday at the Williamson Tip-Off tournament as they will face Galeton on Friday at 6 p.m. Then on Monday the Lady Bucks will travel to Austin for a 6 p.m. start time.
