Happy Valley Lady Warriors Short-handed Lady Warriors won’t back down on hardwood

BY IVAN SANDERS STAR CORRESPONDENT

There may only be four girls sitting on the bench beside Happy Valley Lady Warrior head coach Dana Hill this season, but don’t look for the Lady Warriors to make excuses or run and hide despite dressing only nine players in 2022-23.

And while the current numbers doesn’t allow for the Lady Warriors even to scrimmage evenly among themselves, Hill knows the grit that this year’s team has and expects them to put up a fight each time they take the floor.

“Our biggest challenge is our numbers,” Hill said. “The kids, I am really proud of them and how hard they have worked to this point. We are struggling with numbers right now, they are down, but the effort these girls have put forth has been tremendous to this point and if they keep working hard, anything can happen. We have just got to keep ourselves out of foul trouble and some of the younger girls are going to have to step up and play.”

Hill will be leaning heavily on his three seniors to provide the spark and leadership for his younger players to fall in behind in a supportive role.

“We have three seniors and two have quite a bit of playing time,” said Hill. “Kadie Bailey has played a lot of basketball here on the ‘Hill and Mailey Guy who has transferred in from Unaka has played a lot of basketball up there. Adrianna Harageones, last year was her first year coming out without a lot of basketball experience, but she works hard and makes us work hard in practice and that’s all I can ask out of her.”

Hill will need his sophomore class to really lace up the sneakers tight and be ready to contribute with the lack of depth facing the Lady Warriors.

Cayden Anderson, Gracie Younce, and Josie Zeoli are three players that Hill will be looking to get a lot of time out of and they will have to grow up real quick. Junior Marcida Moore will also have to be an impact player for the Lady Warriors this season.

“When Marcida wants to go, she goes,” Hill said. “If we can harness that night in and night out, we can be pretty competitive.”

There is no doubt who will be leading the pack in conference play as Hill said that everything will run through South Greene this season and the shake out of the rest of the conference is a coin flip from second to last place.

“South Greene is head and shoulders above everyone else and then it will be a dog fight for second,” Hill said. “Chuckey Doak is a lot better and West Greene will be decent as well as Johnson County. It will be a dog fight for second to last place.”