SATURDAY-SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27-28, 2021 PAGE 15
WWW.ELIZABETHTON.COM
Dana Hill Head Coach
2021-2022 Happy Valley Lady Warriors
Lady Warriors in rebuilding phase entering new season BY IVAN SANDERS STAR SPORTS EDITOR ivan.sanders@elizabethton.com
D
ana Hill may look more like a carpenter this season than a basketball coach as he will be charged with taking a lot of youth and trying to shape it into a solid basketball team on Warrior Hill by district tournament time. “Going into the second season, we are still rebuilding,” Hill said of his Lady Warrior program. “Rome wasn’t built in a day. We are going through a youth movement period. We have a group of freshmen who are coming in and working really hard. “I have two tremendous leaders in seniors Scarlett Zoeli and Holly Moore who have done a great job in getting us ready. Kadie Bailey and Reagan Street are going to
play a lot of minutes for us. Marcida Moore and all those kids out here are going to have to contribute because the numbers are not where we want them to be. We are building this program back and we will play with what we have got and that’s all you can do.” Hill will have to rely on six incoming freshman to help provide minutes this season with only seven upperclassmen returning but that is something that he feels confident about as the freshmen have been working all summer really hard according to Hill. With such a young team, Hill won’t have the luxury of putting a full package of schemes together for what he might like to accomplish but must work to groom his team around the talent he has and utilize it at the appropriate opportunity. “Obviously you have to make some
changes with the number of kids that we have. Last year, we picked our spots of pressing and getting after it. We feel like we can do some of that this year. It depends if we can build some depth up later in the year,” said Hill. “Early, if you check our schedule we are playing some really good teams. We are going to learn to compete first and that’s what we are going to work on in the early season and I think that is what is going to help us compete with our conference schedule.” With the changes in conferences, the Lady Warriors no longer have to compete with the likes of Elizabethton and Unicoi Co. but that doesn’t mean the road gets any easier. “South Greene, Happy Valley, Chuckey Doak, West Greene - I would like to think that we could fit in there at number two,”
Hill said of how he sees the conference possibly panning out. “Who knows how this winter and COVID is going to work out. That is something that we have kept from the girls but we need to stay healthy. If we have starters out it’s going to really hurt. God’s will be done is all I can say about that. “I am excited for these girls. They love playing together.”
