Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
The 2014-15 Kimball High School girls basketball team.
Chauncey Pedersen is back to guide the Kimball High girl's basketball after taking over as the head man last year. It might be hard to equal his winning season of 13-11 last year as he will lose the services of five solid seniors, including 3 starters in Shelby Vogel, Kelly Green, and Brooke Hager, plus some-time starter Laura Flores and strong off the bench player Brianna Jones. Vogel was all conference, third team all region and honorable mention all state. Green was honorable mention all conference.
Despite the loss of the five seniors, coach Pedersen has some talent returning to build around. Danika Daum, a 5'11" junior, was all conference as a sophomore, second team all region, and honorable mention all state. She led the team in scoring last year with 316 points averaging 13 points a game and also led in rebounds averaging 7.5 a game. She also led the team in blocks and was high in steals too. Senior Jessica Hanks is the other returning starter and plays bigger than her 5'7". She was honorable mention all conference last year and had a good set of stats including 123 points scored for a 5 point average, hit on 19 three pointers, had 97 rebounds, 21 steals, and 22 assists.
Pedersen will have to fill in around these two and he has some other returning varsity experience including 5'8" junior Madison Biesecker, 5'4" junior guard Arica McCloud, and 5'5" junior guard Kailey Dickerson, all of whom are returning letter winners. Others expected to battle for starting roles are 5'5" senior guard Alexis Gawith, 5'8" junior post Myriah Tyan, and 5'8" freshman Alex Reader.
I forgot to mention that both Daum and Hanks also were honored by Kimball's other conference, the South Platte Valley Athletic Association conference with Daum named to the 2nd team, Hanks given honorable mention, and both were also LJS Academic All State as well and NSAA Academic All State. They are smart enough to pick up on the game plan of coach Pedersen!
The Lady Longhorns will be going up against some very tough competition this year with teams like Mitchell, Hemingford, and Gordon Rushville in the WTC conference, and North Platte St. Pats, Hershey, and Chase County in the SPVA. In sub district play they have Hemingford, Bridgeport and Bayard.
There are 19 girls checked out for the sport with 2 seniors, 6 juniors, 5 sophomores, and 6 freshmen. This is adequate numbers for coach Pedersen and assistant Tiffany Johnson to work with. I need to include coach Michele Daum as well as she is going to be helping out big time at the start of the season as coach Pedersen recovers from neck surgery that will probably even keep him away from court side for the first two or three weeks of the season.
In commenting of the season outlook, coach Pedersen said, "We will have a very tough schedule this year. Both conferences will be very strong with plenty of talent returning. Although we lost five girls to graduation, I feel we will still be very competitive and look to challenge for the conference titles."
Kimball opens up the season hosting their own four school tournament with play on December 5-6.