The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
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SHS girls' basketball tips off
Hornets to press, play up-tempo style
By Jerry Hinnen, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: August 31, 2006
On paper, there aren't as many positives for the Saline High girls' basketball team as head coach Jason Pickett would like as the team enters its 2006 season.
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Last year's squad finished 5-16 overall and 2-8 in Southeastern Conference play. Only one starting player returns from that team, and only five players are back from the entire roster.
But Pickett is ready to point out that basketball games aren't played on paper.
"If we stay healthy and continue to progress," he said a few days before the Hornets' season opener against Northville, "we can be a team to reckon with."
Pickett's optimism is grounded, in part, in the positive attitude created in the program by the 2005 even as it faced adversity.
"Last year's team shouldn't be measured by wins and losses," he said, "but by their dedication and willingness to do the hard work they instilled in the group that came back."
That work ethic has been sustained through a rigorous summer and pre-season training schedule that Pickett believes has his team ready to compete. The team's biggest strength, he feels, is the players' agility and ability to cause turnovers.
"We have a lot of quickness and team speed," he said. "We traditionally press quite a bit. That's what we do, try to dictate the tempo, apply some pressure and hope to get some easy baskets."
The goal of forcing turnovers and clamping down on defense is so important to Pickett and the team's success that the team's practice jerseys read, "Saline Defense" instead of "Saline Hornets."
"It's that important to us," he said.
What's less clear is where the team's scoring punch will come from. The multiple departures from last season's team mean that starting spots and minutes are up for grabs among a number of inexperienced players.
"We're going to be young," Pickett said, "but they've worked extremely hard and that bodes well for us … They're an exciting group to coach."
The closest things to surefire starters are senior Kara Zawisza (the team's lone returning starter) at one forward position and Monica Mezger at point guard. While Zawisza has been a longtime steady hand, Mezger has shown dramatic recent improvement to claim the spot as her own.
"It's night and day. She's playing with a lot more confidence," Pickett said. "She's the floor general out there. We expect a lot out of our point guard and Monica has stepped up."
Junior center Kristin Nye is also likely to secure a starting spot, but the other two starting roles — and possibly any of the five — are yet to be determined. Those candidates include talented freshman center Madeline Winters; sophomore defensive specialists Angie Hollis and Beth Ormsby; strong senior rebounder Kristin de Haan; athletic junior Alissa Robison; quick-footed junior guards Sarah Hoffman and Breana Boyer; sharp-shooting senior Megan Townsend; and promising freshman guard Kristy Chapman.
Pickett admitted that with so little varsity experience available, wins and losses may not always be the most important factor in evaluating his team's success.
"Regardless, you always want to see progress," he said.
But he also asserted that neither he nor his team was going to set the bar any lower than usual for the 2006 team. The program's annual goals, he said, are to win league and district titles, and if the team continues to improve as expected those goals are legitimately realistic.
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