By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
Following a 9-12 result in 2022-23, the Ell-Saline girls basketball team will look to take the next step with a veteran-heavy squad and deep reserves.
Brandi Schneider returns to the helm in Brookville for her second season as the leader of the Lady Cardinals.
Ell-Saline did graduate a few key pieces over the offseason, but returns four senior starters who anchor a lineup that should look like this come tip-off.
PG- Bayleigh Schneider (Sr)
SG- Avery Richards, (Sr)
G- Ally Richards, (Sr)
G- Taelor Hardesty (Jr)
F- Brin Hecker, (Sr)
The Lady Cards will also look for big minutes off the bench from a trio of seniors in Reygan Schrock, Kalei Powell, and Gabey Norris, as well as junior Isabelle Porter.
Ahead of the 2023-24 campaign, we had a chance to catch up with Coach Schneider and get her thoughts on this year’s squad.
Q: When you had a chance to look back on it, what were your overall thoughts on last season?
A: We play in a really tough conference and these girls have hung really well with those teams. This program has improved a lot over the course of these seniors' high school careers and a lot of last year’s losses were by just 2-3 points.
Q: Entering this year, what would you say are the biggest known strengths of your team?
A: Any one of our four senior starters can have an outstanding game on any given night and trying to shut down one of them leaves the door open for the rest to have a big game.
Q: What are the biggest looming questions or challenges that you’ll look to sort out in these first few weeks?
A: We’re small, and we rely a lot on our defense. We’ll have to match up against teams in our conference that have larger lineups and we lost a good post defender last season. We have some players that we feel can match up well but we’ll have to stay out of foul trouble while playing good defense.
Q: What are the biggest goals and expectations for this group heading into the new season?
A: I want these girls to enjoy this season. This senior group has been playing together since kindergarten and it’s been great to see them grow and develop over the years. When they’re all on and playing together they’re a lot of fun to watch and when that happens we’re a tough team to play against.
The Lady Cardinals open their season in Herington with a road game against the Railers this Friday.