GREENVILLE – The Greenville Lady Wave hosted the Brookville Lady Blue Devils and the Russia Lady Raiders Tuesday night in the team’s first basketball scrimmage of the 2019-2020 season under the direction of veteran head coach Rachael Kerns.
“New group this year,” said Greenville varsity girls head coach Rachael Kerns. “Not really sure what to expect. Both teams come in with much bigger size tonight than what we have. I really just wanted to make sure we were out there competing and I think we did that in every aspect tonight.”
“The good news tonight – we didn’t have a tough time getting shots,” Kerns continued. “We had a tough time finishing shots and that is really reassuring as a coach because if we weren’t getting good looks then we have to kind of go back from the very beginning.”
Gone from last year’s 10-12 team are 2019 graduates; Jada Garland, Koryanne Elliott, Saki Nakamura and Lani Shilt.
The 2018-2019 Lady Wave averaged 41.2 points per game, 26.2 rebounds, 8.5 assists and 7.7 steals per contest. The 2019-2020 team will look to replace the 20.6 points per game, 9.7 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 3.9 steals per game racked-up by the four 2019 seniors.
With the new season comes a new lineup and changes for the upcoming season.
“We are definitely going to mix it up just a little defensively,” said Kerns. “I think we are going to play a little more to our needs vs more than what I want to play.”
“We’re not real tall but we are a little longer than we look,” Kerns added. “We just have to play to what our strengths are going to be.”
Returning for the Lady Wave is 2019 leading scorer Haleigh Mayo Behnken with 12.2 points per game, leading rebounder with 7.1 boards per game and a team leading 2.3 steals per game.
After missing most of the 2019 season due to injury, floor general Morgan Gilbert brings a 6.1 scoring average and a team leading 3.5 assists average to the new season.
Natea Davidson brings a 3.6 points a 3.8 rebounding average from 2019 to the court, Nyesha Wright 2.4 points and 2.8 rebound average, Annie Hayes 1.9 points and 2.4 rebounds and Abbie Yoder with a 1.0 points average and 2.2 rebound average from the 2018-2019 season.
Grace Shafffer, Libby McKinney and Taylor Yates also return for the Lady Wave basketball program.
“We had some girls that have only been here for three days, some have been here for five practices,” said Kerns. “It is still so early we’re not all the way in basketball form, but as far as executing our offense we got fantastic looks. We just missed a lot of things around the rim but if we weren’t getting those looks I would be a little more worried.”
Lindsey McGlinch takes over the varsity assistant coaching position for the 2019-2020 season. Laura Swigart returns as the JV coach and Steve Liette will continue as the freshman coach.
“Excited to keep working,” concluded Coach Kerns. “We’ll be back at it on Thursday.”
The Lady Wave travels to Celina for a Thursday basketball scrimmage with a 6 p.m. start time.
