By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
After finishing the 2019-2020 season with a 4-18 record, the Ell-Saline Cardinals girls basketball team will be looking to improve with a new head coach.
Bill Gies will assume head coaching duties at Ell-Saline this season.
When the Cardinals tip off their season against Sacred Heart on Friday their starting five will look something like this.
PG: Reece Ditto (Sr, 5-3)
G: Raleigh Kramer (Jr, 5-7)
F: Sadie Bradley (Sr, 5-8)
F: Hannah Backus (Sr, 5-8)
F/C: Bryanna Rowley (Jr, 5-8, led team with 6.3 ppg in 19-20)
Abilene will also get solid bench production from Raynee Hardesty, Abby Frisbie, Keala Wilson and Lacie Kohman.
We had a chance to speak with Coach Gies ahead of his team's first game on Friday to ask some questions about this year's Lady Cardinals.
Q: Here in your first year as the head coach of Ell-Saline, what are the biggest things that you’re looking to add to this program?
A: One of our girls last night made a comment about our culture and said that if we could win our first game of the season that would be like Everest for us. The entire season is going to feel different if we win our first game. We want to create a culture where we are expecting to win every game, not just to be playing in every game.
What are you looking to change, if anything from a basketball standpoint?
Our tempo is going to be a little faster. Watching our kids running drills I think that the previous coaches gave the kids a good set of skills so our cupboard isn’t bare. We’re looking to have a lot more movement as well so our kids don’t get caught standing in one place.
How did this team view last season as a whole?
There’s a lot of success in the fact that they won more games and played well after Christmas. The frustration of only winning four games goes along with the accomplishment of winning four, and they’re really wanting to build on that and continue to improve that this year.
What would you say is this team's biggest strength heading into the season?
I’ve got five kids that push the other five kids really hard every day in practice, because I’ve told them that if they can beat someone one-on-one they’ll get their job. We’re really trying to build on the idea that the best five girls play, and that really pushes them to want to be more successful.
And your biggest weakness?
Our weakness is that the girls don’t know what I want from them yet, some of their skills might not play to the way that I want to use them, but we’ll get all of that figured out.
What is your expectation for this team heading into the season?
We’re very nice and I don’t want to develop a “knock you down” attitude, but I do want us to play ball hard and be coming for teams all the time. We want to develop an attitude of “you do your job and we’ll win.”
Ell-Saline begins their season on Friday at 6pm when they hit the road to take on the Sacred Heart Lady Knights.