Elizabeth Vanderpool holds a basketball before school starts. Mrs. Vanderpool played college basketball at Nebraska Wesleyan.
This year’s girls basketball team will start their winter season with a new head coach, Mrs. Elizabeth Vanderpool.
This year, English teacher Mrs. Vanderpool became the new head girls’ basketball coach. Vanderpool played two seasons of college basketball at Nebraska Wesleyan. She has been assistant coaching for 10 years, coaching two years for reserve and eight for JV. This will be her 11th year, so she is not new to the game.
“I have always been into sports. I played softball growing up, basketball growing up and I ran track. It’s just always been a part of my life and once you get past high school and college, the way to stay involved is to become a coach,” Vanderpool said.
Vanderpool plans to make some new changes to practices and the season overall. Starting with a couple of weeks of conditioning and open gym. She also plans to really work on the fundamentals and basics and build on the strengths that the players already have. During the season, do some days of team bonding or just watching film to keep the girls engaged throughout the long season.
“I just want everyone to work hard. You can not get mad at somebody, especially somebody when they are giving their all. I want everybody to work hard and I will work as hard for them as I possibly can by doing scouting, team bonding, and working on things we need to work on,” Vanderpool said.
The team will consist of 45 girls as of right now, with Jeremy Hamilton and Nick Drake as reserve coaches and Mike Simmons as the JV coach. All three coaches will help with the varsity. They also had their 1st pre-season meeting on the 19th of October. Some players are hoping for a couple of changes this new season.
“Some new things I would like to see this year are more fundamentally derived practices and work more on shooting since we don’t have the biggest team,” Madisyn Hamilton said.
Hamilton is a junior this year and her 3rd year playing basketball. She has played for both Vanderpool and the now-previous head coach, Gregory Mays. Last year’s team had a record of 8-14, so some girls are looking for some redemption.
“I hope this year we can come out strong and win some games this year and grow as a team,” sophomore Kendall Consbruck said.
