W-G girls to field young, inexperienced squad

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The Woodward-Granger girls will have many holes to fill this season, but remain hopeful the new starters can swiftly adjust to playing at the varsity level. Photo courtesy Gary Dresback.

WOODWARD — The Woodward-Granger girls basketball team won only three games in 2015-16. That number jumped to eight last season, with the Hawks finishing 8-15 overall and 5-11 in WCAC play.

Five seniors helped fuel the rise, and if W-G intends to match or improve on last season it will have to rely on young players with little varsity experience.

“What we have to do is take little steps and make sure we do the little things right,” head coach Gary Dresback said. “If you do enough of the little things right they tend to add up to big things, and how well we avoid making silly mistakes we tell you the kind of season we will have.”

Kayley Dresback, a junior guard, is the top returning scorer. She averaged 4.1 points per game last year. She had 51 rebounds and 39 steals while tallying 56 assists.

Senior Alyssa Bice score at a 2.7 ppg clip while collecting 41 rebounds, making 33 assists and coming away with 36 steals while fellow senior Kaitlyn Peters had 1.2 ppg and 47 total rebounds in the last campaign.

The Hawks averaged 40.5 points per game last season while surrendering 46.4 points per outing. W-G was guilty of nearly 17 turnovers per outing, though that number was elevated by five or six games against powerhouse teams from Panorama, Des Moines Christian and Van Meter.

One number Dresback knows must improve is shooting percentage, as the team hit drained just 29.9 percent of their shots from the floor.

“A lot of that is confidence and is something we will be definitely be working on,” he said. “Especially for a young team it is important not panic if things aren’t going your way, because there will be times when they are not. You have to continue to work hard and believe in yourself and your teammates.”

Junior Lisa Pitman and sophomores Mae Anderson, Natalie Helbling and Katelyn Scharlau are all expected to see plenty of playing time for the Hawks.

“We will miss the seniors who are gone, but they were inexperienced once, just like we are now,” Dresback said. “We just need to be patient and work hard and things will come together, just like it did for the last group.”

W-G plays nine times before the holiday break, but only three of those games will be at home. The Hawks open play tonight at Collins-Maxwell, then join the W-G boys for road games at Martensdale-St. Marys (Nov. 27), West Central Valley (Nov. 28) and DMC (Dec. 1).

The first home game is scheduled for Dec. 4 against Saydel, with Ogden visiting Dec. 12 and Panorama Dec. 19.

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