2009-2010 Crown Point Lady Bulldogs Basketball Preview

Juniors Zarah Cecich (left) and Madeline Moore will get plenty of playing time as junior forwards for the Lady Bulldogs. (All photos by Mark Smith)

New coach Mike Cronkhite (center of middle row) poses with his new family...the 2009-2010 Crown Point Lady Bulldogs and coaches Sarah Zondor (JV), Andrew Shih (freshman assistant, to left of Cronkhite), Ken Wring (freshman coach, on far right) and Jon Haas (varsity assistant, far left and slightly out of frame).

Better shot of Jon Haas (varsity assistant coach, in middle of center row) and Andrew Shih to right of Haas (freshman assistant).

2010 CROWN POINT Lady Bulldogs
Coach: Mike Cronkhite (1st year) CP was 12-9 last season
JV games at 6:00 p.m. DAC games in CAPS
Nov. 7 (Sat) at Penn (scrimmage) 12 noon
Nov. 13 (F) at Hebron
Nov. 14 (S) at Kankakee Valley
Nov. 17 (Tu) Andrean
Nov. 20 (F) PORTAGE
Nov. 27 (F) at CHESTERTON
Nov. 28 (Sat) Hanover Central - 6:30 pm
Dec. 1 (Tu) at Lowell
Dec. 4 (F) LaPORTE
Dec. 11 (F) at LAKE CENTRAL
Dec. 12 (Sat) Boone Grove
Dec. 15 (Tu) at VALPARAISO
Dec. 18 (F) at MICHIGAN CITY
Dec. 29 (Tu) at MERRILLVILLE
Jan. 2 (S) at PORTAGE (B/G) DH 6:00 pm
Jan. 8 (F) CHESTERTON (B/G) DH 6:00 pm
Jan. 16 (S) LAKE CENTRAL
Jan. 22 (F) MICHIGAN CITY
Jan. 26 (Tu) at LaPORTE
Jan. 29 (F) VALPARAISO
Feb. 4 (F) MERRILLVILLE

Hobart (4A) Sectional
(with MC, Merrillville, Valpo, Portage, Chesterton, Hobart and LaPorte)
Feb. 8 (Tues) quarterfinals
Feb. 9 (W) quarterfinals
Feb. 11 (F) semifinals
Feb. 12 (Sat) championship

Crown Point Lady Bulldogs 2009-2010 Roster
G - Alle Geisen - 5-5 junior guard
G - Kelly Gross - 5-4 junior guard
G - Kendall Brown - 5-9 junior guard
F - Courtney Kvachkoff -5-9 sophomore guard
F - Madeline Moore -5-9 junior forward
G - Hayley Bordui - 6-0- freshman guard
G - Victoria Connelly - 5-6 junior guard
G - Lisa Kurth - 5-6 junior guard
F - Zarah Cecich - 6-0 junior forward
F - Michaela Prough - 6-0 sophomore forward
F - Alexis Joseph - 6-0 sophomore forward
F - Taylor Equihua - 5-10 freshman forward
G - Sarah Rivich - 5-7 freshman guard

CROWN POINT (10-28-2009) It's hard for new coach Mike Cronkhite to be specific, but it wasn't hard for him to be enthusiastic about the 2009-2010 Crown Point Lady Bulldogs last week.

"We have a great group of kids. I can't wait for us to get started," he said last week. "We have started, but I can't wait for us to start playing games."

Cronkhite enters his first season as Crown Point's girls varsity head coach and, while he knows Crown Point is a little different from Kouts, the former Porter County Conference (PCC) coach of the year, doesn't expect coaching to be any different.

"I've had a lot of people tell me the Duneland is not the PCC," he says. "And I say, 'No, but basketball is basketball no matter where you're at.'"

"I enjoyed my time at Kouts, but this was a good move for me and I'm anxious to get going."

Cronkhite knows that expectations will always be high at Crown Point because of the long history of success under coaches Tom May and Scott Reid over the last quarter century. CP has not been a champion in recent years, but they have not played badly. Crown Point was 9-0 at one point and finished at 12-9 last year. A mediocre season by traditional CP standards, but not truthfully a mediocre season. With no seniors on the 2010 squad, that record may be difficult to duplicate against projected formidable competition from Michigan City and Valparaiso.

But the great thing about the preseason is that the girls and the new coaches (Cronkhite, new assistant and former Hammond and Hebron coach Jon Haas and JV coach and late 90s CP star Sarah Zondor) don't know if that's true just yet. Pre-season is a happy time.

"We're trying to play below the radar as long as we can," said Cronkhite. "We're all juniors, sophomores and freshmen. We really like the group we've got. I think that's a big positive for me. You're guaranteed to have your kids for two years and you can teach them to play the way you want to. I don't know if it's a honeymoon or what, but we're looking to come out and compete right away."

Crown Point problems have been relative in recent years. Relative to teams outside the conference, the Lady Bulldogs have been good. In league play, they have not had the ball-handling, passing and shooting of the top squads. That's a tall order. Michigan City and Chesterton both graduated two Division I players after last season. To say CP was not at that DAC "first division" level does not say they were poor quality. It simply says they were not at the level of the top teams in their league and their sectional.

That may be a particularly tough thing for coaches and players to accept. While the Lady Bulldogs may use more full court pressure, CP won't get a lot better than they were defensively last year. Change must come at the offensive end of the floor where CP has traditionally struggled.

"We won't have a kid who scores 20 points a game," said Cronkhite. "But I think we have six or seven kids who could put up 20 or 25 on any given night. The speech I gave them yesterday is that it's a long season. One thing we have to develop is a swagger. We've got to get the attitude that we can walk into any place and beat that team. We've got 3 1/2 months to do that. We need that for the post-season."

CPLB NOTES: New coach Mike Cronkhite does not have a starting lineup yet, but he has named juniors Kelly Gross, Madeline Moore and Alle Geisen the three team captains.

"I'm looking forward to those three doing good things for us from a leadership standpoint."

The adult leadership will feature faces that are very familiar to Crown Point and to local girls basketball observers.

"Jon Haas. I didn't bring him with me, but we've been friends since we coached against each other at Hebron," explained Cronkhite. "He coached varsity at Calumet, Hebron and Hammond high."

"My JV coach is Sarah Zondor. She played here (1998-2001) and she can still get out on the floor and play."

"The two freshmen coaches are Andy Wring. He was here last year and Andy Shih. He was the 8th grade assistant. Now, he's the freshman assistant. He's a science teacher here.

"Haas and I are in the math department. Right across the hall from each other."

"My three years I was at Kouts, we played Boone eight times and Morgan 11 or 12 times. It'll be a little different here because they all count. In the PCC, there was the South County and the PCC tournament. There's no tournament here. So every time you play someone it counts. I'm looking forward to it. The only bad thing is that you can only go out of the conference six times."

Cronkhite did not know any player in the CP program when he took the varsity job at CPHS. He had seen several Crown Point games in the past as he scouted Kouts' PCC rival Boone Grove.

Crown Point will scrimmage Penn for the first time this Saturday.

"Mike Malaski (CP's assistant AD) asked me if I wanted to have a scrimmage," Cronkhite explained. "I said yes and then we looked on the IHSAA web site and it came down to Gavit and Penn. Gavit will be pretty good this year, too, but in the long run, Penn will do us more good."

Among the newcomers, the coaches agree that one girl stands out.

"Hayley Borduit is a six-foot freshman," said Cronkhite. "She'll be on the varsity full time. Hayley had a fantastic summer and she's been playing since she was very little. She's a 6-foot guard. Hayley can shoot it and she can take you off the dribble. I guarantee after a couple of games that you all will know who she is."

"We're loaded at the sophomore and junior class as well. If our underclassmen don't play like underclassmen, we'll be good. We play there games before we get into the DAC. That can either be good or bad. Hopefully, we'll get confidence early."

"It's about getting each one girl better individually because then the wins are going to come."