Lady Warriors

2021-2022 Happy Valley Lady Warriors

Dana Hill Head Coach

Lady Warriors in rebuilding phase entering new season

BY IVAN SANDERS

STAR SPORTS EDITOR ivan.sanders@elizabethton.com

Dana 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.”

2021-2022 Happy Valley Lady Warriors

# Name Position Grade 00 Reagan Street Post Sr. 10 Holly Moore Guard Sr. 11 Natalie Cline Post Fr. 12 Juley Nieminski Guard So. 15 Jocie Zoeli Guard Fr. 21 Kaydence Carroll Post Fr. 22 Cayden Anderson Guard Fr. 23 Marcida Moore Guard So. 25 Adrianna Harageones Guard Jr. 30 Gracie Younce Guard Fr. 32 Lily Forbes Post Fr. 40 Kadie Bailey Guard Jr. 44 Scarlett Zoeli Guard Sr.

2021-2022 Happy Valley Lady Warrior Schedule

30 at Unaka November

December

3 at Hampton 7 at Johnson Co.* 10 Chuckey Doak* 13 Elizabethton 17 at U-H 20 at Cloudland 21 Unicoi Co.

4 Unaka 6 Hampton 11 at South Greene* 14 West Greene* 17 U-H 18 Cloudland 21 Johnson Co.* 25 at Chuckey Doak* 28 South Greene*

February 1 at West Greene* 5 at Elizabethton 11 at Unicoi Co. 15-22 District Tournament TBA

*denotes conference game

January

Head Coach: Dana Hill Assistant Coach: Cara Bowling, Rik Anderson