General girls looking to build on early hoop success
By Brian Questel
January 5, 2011
343
Its a new year in more ways than one for the Wooster High girls basketball team.
They entered the 2011 portion of their schedule with a 5-2 mark overall, halfway to last seasons 10-win total, but Wooster High coach Mike Baus is seeing room for improvement through the remainder of the schedule.
I guess looking at it from both sides of the coin we havent put together a full game. We feel there is a lot of upside and potential on how were playing, said the first-year coach. On other side, being 5-2, Ill take it because we havent totally jelled yet.
The Generals entered the New Year still in the hunt for the Ohio Cardinal Conference title, although they cant afford to stumble behind front-running and unbeaten West Holmes (5-0 OCC, 7-0), a team that defeated Wooster 48-42 over winter break. Mansfield Senior (7-3), another team that beat Wooster (58-47), is 4-1 and in second place just ahead of Wooster, Orrville (6-2) and Lexington (6-2), all standing at 3-2.
West Holmes solidified its grasp on the top spot by routing Senior 61-38 on Dec. 30.
The standings changed this past week as Wooster traveled to Orrville on Jan. 6 for its showdown with former Wooster coach Mark Alberts squad before they returned home for their Jan. 8 clash with Clear Fork (1-4 OCC, 2-5).
While Woosters two OCC losses were disheartening, Baus was happy with one fact coming out of both games.
In both games we battled to the end, said Baus. We were only down four points with two minutes to play. I have a lot of respect for both teams, and if we had played a little better, those would have been fun games right down to the wire.
West Holmes is extremely young and talented. They have a lot history and heritage with their girls basketball program. Wooster has had the same type of history and we want to get back to that time when Wooster ruled the roost for a decade.
One area Baus has been pleased with is the Generals board work. Wooster is averaging 37 rebounds a game, which was a concern entering the season.
We probably work on rebounding every night with several different drills, said Baus. Definitely a section of practice every night is spent on rebounding. Its important for us because every team we face, were smaller. We have to box out and get to the ball on rebounds – weve got to be better than most teams. The girls are getting the concept and starting to do it.
Baus is spending more time now on the offensive side of the ball as the mid-point of the season nears. The Generals 1-2 punch remains juniors Lauren Walker (14.7) and Halle Gallo-Malta (14.3), with sophomore Claire Ballard adding another 10 of the teams 53-point average.
Even though those three are carrying the load point-wise, we go another 4-5 deep in practice who are contributing. We just havent shown that in games, said Baus. Its a matter of time before they get dialed up in the games. Once they break through the barrier of doing it in a game, the team will be off and running.
We recognize the defense is ahead of the offense after seven games. Were starting to get the offense more minutes in practice now than a month ago. Weve had some big (defensive) quarters. Against Madison it was 23-0 until a girl made one of two free throws, and last game against Ashland, we shut them out in the fourth quarter and held them to four points the whole second half. Weve had moments where weve been pretty impressive with our defense.
As a team, weve had different people step up and our attitude after remains great. Were working hard in practice and from a coaching standpoint thats about all you can ask for. The girls have a good work ethic and they are not messing around. They are studying the scouting reports hard and watching film and they are doing what we want to prepare. Im proud of the girls.
