The North Butler girls basketball team concluded their season at 3-18 overall after falling to Aplington-Parkersburg in a Class 2A regional quarterfinal. The Bearcats swept Northwood-Kensett and defeated Don Bosco in non-conference action to track down their three wins.
Head Coach Jordan Nolz on areas where the Bearcats made strides.
“There’s a lot of things that we did a lot better on. A lot of these girls lacked a lot of basketball IQ and I think that was developed throughout the year, although sometimes it doesn’t appear that way,” says Nolz. “There was development and understanding, of different types of zones, different situations, how to deal with different pressures, how to deal with different screens, what teams are gonna do, how to make halftime adjustments and all that kind of stuff. They developed in that way.”
The Bearcats were challenged by a low scoring average with 30 points per game and 25 turnovers per game.
Nolz on playing with consistency.
“We did these little things that we’d worked on in practice and we executed properly. We saw results that we were happy with, competing hand in hand with some of the better teams. Seeing that stuff is awesome to see, then it’s also just extremely frustrating because then 30 seconds later for the next three minutes, you could see the other half of it. That’s really the most challenging thing for me. Some of our players developed more than others from a fundamental standpoint. That’s really where we struggled a lot this year. We need to really look into this offseason and hopefully develop the fundamentals a little bit better.”
The Bearcats will graduate two seniors, including Addy Spain and Kimberley Edeker. They’re projected to return 10 players next season, including Top of Iowa All-Conference honorees Zoey Thompson and Kamri Groen.
