Small Roster Concerns Girls’ Basketball

While the varsity girls’ basketball team expects to be a contender in league play and make another section playoff run come February, they will be doing so with a much smaller roster than in pervious seasons.

Junior Zoe Crouch explained that the program had a fairly large JV team, but cuts were made, and 2 starting players quit, resulting in a varsity roster of just 8 players.

Head coach Art Thoms is concerned about the lack of depth. “Playing with 8 players will be a challenge.  Things like fatigue, foul trouble and injuries will be factors,” he said.  “The positive is this group has great team chemistry and really like each other.  All the girls will get a lot of playing time.”

“It’s definitely going to be a big change. It’s going to be hard to stay rested,” added Crouch.

Last year, the team advanced to the state title game.

According to Thoms, living up to last year’s performance will be challenging. “Changes to the playoff format will make it more challenging to return to the State Championship,” he said.

“We have one of the most challenging schedules in the state and are taking it one game at a time. Our focus is on improvement each day, having fun and going through the ups and down together,” said Thoms.

Sophomore Kate Brown has her own concerns about the limited roster. “I just hope that we can all get better because we are losing a lot of seniors so I hope all of us who aren’t seniors get a lot better so we can all continue to be successful and carry the team,” Brown said. “It’s a lot of weight on our shoulders, because [the seniors] are really talented.”

“My hopes for the season would be continuing on an upward trend from last year and make it as far as we can,” Crouch added. “We had out first game against Monte Vista, and we won 70-33, so we are off to a good start.”

Fortunately, the girls work well together.  “We all just really like each other on and off the court, we connect really well when we play,” explained Brown. “We know each others’ strengths and weaknesses, so we can all help each other. The main thing is we all just have fun together so it helps the team a lot.”

Thoms agrees that the girls are tight-knit. “This is the closest group of kids I have ever had in my 6 years [of coaching].  The girls really care about team 1st and support each other,” he said.

“We have many 2-sport athletes that play for the love of the game and take pride in representing Campolindo,” Thoms added, acknowledging  Zoe Crouch, Kiana Thorson, Kate Brown, Ashley Thoms, and Grace McGuire as being athletes who participate in multiple Campolindo sports throughout the year.