The West Fork girls basketball team returns an experienced roster including eight seniors, that will look to soar beyond their 13-10 overall campaign last year.
West Fork Head Coach Rodney Huber on the depth of this year’s squad.
“The way we play, you have gotta rotate a lot because it’s physically exhausting to go out there and have to sprint around and press for the entire game. It’s huge if somebody gets injured, if somebody gets in foul trouble, if somebody’s sick, and even if somebody’s just not playing well, they’re not hitting shots one night. It’s important to have extra players that can go out there and play,” says Huber. “Quite honestly I think we’ll probably play nine pretty regularly this year, and I think we could go as deep as 11. We have two freshmen that have played very, very well. I think this is the best our depth has been probably since I’ve been at West Fork, so it’s been really nice.”
The Warhawks return senior leading scorer Leah Weaver who averaged 20.7 points per game, and also led the team with 112 steals and 68 assists last season. Senior Karma McMorris returns as the second leading scorer with nine points per game and was the top rebounder with 111 boards last season. The Warhawks also return senior Brylie Hubka (32.5%), junior Brylee Dickman (30.3%) and sophomore Evelyn Hitzhusen (33.3%) who provided additional scoring support, shooting over 30% from the field last season.
Huber on growing team chemistry in practices and the Warhawks brand of basketball this season.
“One of the things I’ve tried to do during practice is just mix up our lineups a lot, to make sure that all of the girls are playing together, understanding each other’s roles and kind of their strengths and weaknesses and trying to get them to play more towards their strengths and eliminate playing towards those weaknesses. I think that’s all part of the process. We’ll be fast, physical and aggressive again, and we’re going to get up and down on offense. A lot of times we probably won’t even get 10 seconds into the shot clock before we get a shot up. Then on the defensive side, we’re going to be in your face the entire game all 32 minutes. Teams will have to earn wins against us.”
West Fork was among the Top of Iowa Conference East leaders in points per game (50.5), steals per game (14.9), assists per game (12) and effective field goal percentage (38%) last season.
The Warhawks will host North Iowa in season opener on Tuesday.