(11-9-2005)
17-5
in 2005...2nd-DAC
14-8 in 2004...(tie) 3rd-DAC
12-9 in 2003....(tie) 1st-DAC
15-7 in 2002...2nd-DAC
20-4 in 2001....1st-DAC...Sectional championship
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| Seniors Michelle Lipton #25 and Ashley Zaucha #22, and junior Katie Kvachkoff #34 are expected to be leaders for the Lady Bulldogs in 2005-2006. | |
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| Senior Jackie Clements #32 is defended by Kvachkoff #34 in a recent Lady Bulldogs practice. | |
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| Senior Hannah Plumley's (left) ball handling skills and junior Anjellica Rospond's (right) 6-foot height and post experience will be keys to this season. | |
PRE-SEASON PROSPECTS: Crown Point returns eight varsity players off a
17-5 team but they must replace both starting guards, Cassie Pruzin and Kaitlyn
Sertich, the teams two leading scorers. This will be the largest CP team
in many years with 6-foot returning centers Courtney Perry and Anjellica Rospond,
plus 5-10 newcomer Katie Kvachkoff, who missed the 2005 season with injury. CP
has numbers and experience at forward with Rospond, Kvachkoff, Jackie Clements,
Ashley Zaucha and Amanda Moore. The Bulldogs have moved former wing players
Stephanie Poulos and Hannah Plumley to guard. Plumley, who has never played lead
guard and returnee Michelle Lipton will take on the pivotal point guard
position.
QUESTION MARKS: Three. Can Plumley and Lipton handle the lead guard
position in DAC play? What will Perry and Rospond be able to do now that
the ball is going in to them every time down the floor? Like everybody
else in the DAC, what are they going to do against league favorite Merrillville?
STRENGTHS: Size. CP has five players 5-9 or taller. There are six
players 5-10 or taller on the junior varsity. Crown Point's days as a little
girl basketball team are over for the foreseeable future. Balanced
shooting. CP has three pure shooters in Plumley, Moore and Poulos. Depth
and defense. The size of the eight returning varsity players plus Kvachkoff
means that CP's full and half court defenses will be very good.
SEASON HIGHLIGHTS: Nov. 19 at Warsaw with all-state candidate guard
Julie Seiss. Nov. 25 and Jan. 6 vs. Chesterton with all-state candidate Kelly Peller. Dec. 13
and Jan. 27 against Valparaiso and all-area guard Erica Humes. Dec. 28 and Feb.4
against Merrillville with Division I players in 6-4 center Brittney Moore and
6-2 forward Sharon Houston.
SEASON OPENER NOTES: The Lady Bulldogs open up their 2005-06 season at Hebron Friday night (Nov. 11) in their new gym that when completed, will seat 2,500. The upper level and media phone lines were not yet operational, but the lower level is finished and capable of seating 1,400 for the Lady Hawks’ home opener with CP on Nov. 11. (Our USA-365 Internet broadcast plans for this game were cancelled due to no phone line capability near the media area.) Hebron is 0-1. They lost 65-53 at Andean on Tuesday (Nov. 8) night. Hebron's Jessica Sheets scored 19 points.
Crown Point's Coaching Team
Varisty coach Tom May - 26th year (421-151)
15 sectional, 7 regional, 4 semistate and 2 state champions
Assistant varsity coach Scott Reid (CPHS grad)
Junior varsity coach Sarah Zondor (CPHS)
Assistant JV coiach : Angie Babjak Gutierrez (CPHS)
Freshman head coach : Meighan Tucker (LC)
Assistant freshman coach: Ginger Keitghley (Lowell)
Volunteer frehsmna coach; Jill Weiand (CPHS)
8th grade head coach: Angie Babjak Gutierrez
8th grade assistant: Ken Wring
7th grade head coach: Tim Isailovich
7th grade assistant: Carolyn Miller Rettig (CPHS) and Jill Weiand
Crown Point varsity coach Tom May was asked to preview and profile the 2005-2006 Lady Bulldogs varsity basketball team. Here's what he had to say, as compiled by Mark Smith for the Lake County Star .
HANNAH
PLUMLEY -- 5-8 senior G/F
"She's a captain. Hannah is a leader who leads through example and hard work and 'I care about you. I'll go to battle with you.'
People (her teammates) will play for her because they like her. She did very well at the Top-100 camp over the summer. People will be surprised. She'll go down the floor quickly with the basketball. She'll start at the 'one' and she'll also play some time at the '3' when Michelle Lipton is in the game. Hannah is going to be the leader of the team. We expect her to play well. The question is, 1.) can she handle being the No. 1 target of people who are trying to beat us and 2.) Can you handle the idea of playing a different position than you have ever done?"
JACKIE CLEMENTS -- 5-9 senior F/C
"Coming from soccer she's a little behind, but she's a great kid, she's a competitor. We didn't think she was in the starting five a week ago, but when we played the varsity against each other, she really played well. She's very close to starting now and if she doesn't, she'll be playing a lot. We'll flip 4 and 5. Right now, she's very close to starting at the '4.' We'd like for Jackie to rely on us to be hard on her. She's very hard on herself. But she has good character. She'll play well. She doesn't mind getting hit or getting physical. She will help us a great deal."
STEPHANIE POULOS -- 5-8 senior G
"She's had a very good pre-season, a nice summer. She's playing the '2' spot now, not the '3'. The biggest change for her at '2' will be defensively. She's never really taken up the challenge of 'I want to stop that girl.' She wants to score 20 a game. She's a good shooter. We want her to be consistent. More than a streak shooter. We don't want her to hit six in a row and miss six in a row. The thing she's been working on is coming from a shot fake and shooting right, shooting left. She's worked very hard. She does exactly what we want her to do. She'll start at the '2'. There's not a shot she doesn't like. Amanda is like that, too. We need points and a player like 'Poulie' opens up Hannah (Plumley) and Amanda (Moore)."
ASHLEY ZAUCHA -- 5-8 senior G/F
"Ashley is probably the smartest kid on our team. She's the most versatile. She's played '1', '2' or '3'. Her game is not where it will be in three or four weeks because she played volleyball. But she has ball skills and she can handle all three spots. She's a decent athlete and she'll be the kid who is a utility player who comes off the bench and helps us. You've got to have somebody like that. She's a great kid to rotate in and out. She has a natural inclination for the ball. Very bright."
MICHELLE LIPTON -- 5-4 senior G
"Michelle is a warrior. She doesn't take much off of anybody. If you're walking down a dark alley, she's the one you want with you. She'll play point guard. She's a good defender. She'll take the best player and shut her down. She likes that challenge. She likes contact. She takes pride in hitting people. She gets that from soccer. She had a broken leg in soccer and she's a little slower right now. Anytime you have a young lady with so much confidence and competitiveness and they are not where they want to be physically, that's a problem. You've got to play where we want and do what we want until you get to where you want to be. She's the leader on the team along with Hannah."
KATIE KVACHKOFF -- 5-10, junior G/F/C
"She is a three-game JV player who didn't play varsity last year due to a foot operation. All she's experienced was a little freshman basketball. She probably is the surprise of all our players. She has size, but has skills of a guard. She can do things that the other girls can't but she can also step out and handle the ball and pass it. We thought originally she'd get a few minutes here and a few there. But she's getting near the point where she can start. She's a good mixture with the other two big kids (Rospond and Perry) and right now I'm thinking I've got to figure out an offense that uses all three of them next year. They'll all be 6-foot and 6-1. She's a Kvachkoff and there's a heritage there with grand daddy and aunts where she's expected to play ball. She's ready for that. She expects that. She just goes and plays. She sees what to do but she can't do everything she sees yet. She can score around the basket and she can shoot the 17-18 foot shot. Nobody knows of her right now."
AMANDA MOORE -- 5-9 junior G/F
"Amanda is 5-6, 5-7 but when she stands next to our 5-10 girls. She's as big as they are. We do not have a girl who has worked as hard to be a basketball player as she has. We'll go three hours at practice and she'll still be at the 'Y' later on shooting baskets all nights of the week. In traffic she finishes. She does little things with the left hand that other kids can't do. She's a sponge. If you tell her something, she'll work on it until she gets it and incorporates it. She likes to play. She loves the game of basketball. She plays year round. This is her sport."
ANJELLICA ROSPOND -- 6-0 junior F/C
"Anjellica is Anjellica. You have another girl with a heritage. Her dad was a great player. She is more finesse. Courtney is banger. We want her to pound people and we don't want you to avoid contact. We want her to get that second and third shot. She likes to shoot the jump shot and she's a good shooter. But we want her be physical. She's a great girl. There's always a smile on her face. She's always happy. She's in the weight room a lot. She's not always working when she's in there, but she is in the weight room a lot."
COURTNEY PERRY -- 5-11 junior F/C
"The one of them (Rospond and Perry) who had the best summer was Perry. She made the al-star team at the Ball State team camp. She's slimmed down a lot and she's ready to go. Tracy Roller, the coach at Ball State, came up to me and said, "I like her, Coach. She's going to do a lot for you.
She's another one who works a lot at her game. She likes to play. She goes home, she runs. She goes home, she goes out and plays. Her flaw is that she is too analytical. She thinks too much. She's thinking five things at once. Courtney is very intelligent. She's a Straight-A kid. Very precise in her classes. But basketball's not like that. She needs to be more fluid. She's going to have a good season."
Coach TOM MAY (26th year)
"You'll see the ball will go in to the post more than it did last year. Scott (assistant coach Scott Reid) said it best the other night. He said, the ball's gone into the post more in three days than it did all last year.
We'll
get mad when they don't finish and do something with it. Courtney
(Perry), if the ball goes in and you're not double-teamed. If it comes right
back out you're going to have to sit down. We want fouls or shots and you
two (Perry and Rospond) to go to the boards.
Katie Kvachkoff is as big as either one of them. And she has ball skills.
She's our best back to the basket scorer. Every girl on the varsity has
bought in. They believe what we're trying to do will work. We are trying
as hard as we can. The coaches are going home at night saying, 'They're trying
everything we want them to.
Sometimes the ball won't go in. Essentially, that's the most important thing. But if you do everything right, you'll get to the point where that (scoring) is going to happen. What happens to young kids... when something works, they've got it. Once they have some success at it, they've got it."
(On CP's change from guard oriented to post oriented?)
"The coaches sit down and say 'What do we have coming back and how can we use it?' Defensively we won't change a lot. We may do a few things differently against somebody like Merrillville. But what are we going to do offensively?
We've got to get an inside game so our kids like Poulie and Hannah and Amanda can get shots outside. So, to get an inside game, we go talk to other coaches. I talked to the coach a The University of Louisville about the high post screen and roll. That's probably the hardest thing to defend.
I sat down with Tom Collins who's running that and running it well, and I asked him where he got it. He gave me some information. We don't have a lot of it in yet. We just have basics in. We've got something we ran when we went to the state finals (in `97) with a triangle. Two wings and three big girls. We have generic stuff and then we'll add more.
You don't rely on what you did 10 years ago? The game has changed. Just like teaching. You can't teach what you taught 10 years ago. In college basketball, the high screen and roll is the hardest thing to defend. That's what we'll be working on."
(On new coaches)
"We've got new coaches everywhere. We've got five coaches who could beat our starters in open gym. And they have. If a school corporation is legitimately saying they value girls athletics and they say girls are as important as the boys, then why are 90% of the coaches men? As you get older, you're able to look at something and not take it at face value. That's when you make judgements. Here (principal) Ryan Pitcock and Jerry Caravana and Bill Dorulla have let us hire some women coaches. These girls are former players, all from established programs.
Ginger is from Lowell. Meghan Tucker is from Lake Central. Sarah Zondor was one of the best players we ever had here. Angie Babjak played on a state finals team. Carolyn Rettig Miller played for me in '81 and '82. She blew out her knee. You have role models. Our football players look at coach (Chip) Pettit and they want to be like that. Coach Enright. They want to have his character.
Mike
Hazen (middle school principal) hired Angie. He thinks she's great.
But he asked me if we needed her. She's Annie Kvachkoff's teacher's aide.
We have to teach them to be coaches. We want you to run everything the way
we do it. The only problem we've had, honestly, is we have to take them
aside and tell them they're a little too hard on the freshmen. They expect
the kids to master things right away. And that's great. But these
kids have only been here two months and they don't know what they're doing yet.
But that (expectation) is not a bad thing. I like the idea of all the women
coaches."
(On newcomers to the program)
"We have a good freshman group and we have a very good incoming seventh grade group. They are taking on ninth graders and winning. They're quick and fast. One of them is Amanda Moore's sister. They're good.
We've got three very good freshman... Sydnee Reeves... a 5-10 freshman. She can really play. Brian Maloney's sister, Meagan Maloney. She might have been on the varsity if she hadn't pulled a hamstring. She's just coming back now. Danila Tarailo... she loves the game.
We have some superior athletes on the JV team. Ashley Collins was all-conference in soccer. Melissa Spisak might be the best female athlete in the whole school. We'll try to put her in a position that doesn't require many ball skills. She can just go get the ball. Then there's Stacy Qualizza. She's very athletic. They're going to be a dynamite JV team. They present real problems for our varsity."
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