Shoot It Like You Mean It

With about a week and a half and over 40 girls, the girl’s basketball team will have their first jamboree game on November 27.

“I think we really need to focus on those little things. So defensive stance, talking and communication, and rebounding. So a lot of those little things are going to build up. Because our first jamboree game isn’t until the 27th of November. So we have about a week and a half, almost two weeks of practice that we can really focus on,” head coach Elizabeth Vanderpool said.

With a record of 3-18 during the 2022-2023 season, Vanderpool plans on steering her team into a different direction of success. 

“I feel like now having a year under my belt, I’m more adamant to make changes and I just feel more confident with decisions that I’m making because last year I was going back and forth asking myself, ‘Is this right?,’ ‘Is this good?,’ but this year, it’s like ‘yep this is what I’m gonna do,” Vanderpool said.

Vanderpool’s team started senior-led conditioning last week to get the girls set and prepared for the season. Out of 40 girls, they have a lot of them stepping up, being leaders, and lending a hand when needed.

“So we’ve hit conditioning really hard these past two weeks. And our numbers are still really good. We already have over 40 players out and so that’s really good. And a lot of people are wanting to step up in leadership roles, which really helps. And so I’m just excited to really focus on those things that help win basketball games next week,” Vanderpool said.

In total, Vanderpool has been a coach for over ten years, whether it was coaching basketball, track, or softball.

“I started coaching my first year teaching at Hastings High which was in 2012, so I’ve been coaching for Hastings High for over ten years and this is my second year as head coach here at Hastings High School. Growing up, I coached track, basketball, and softball with just the little teams around me at home,” Vanderpool said.

While not having “a whole lot of wins” last year, according to Vanderpool, a lot was learned and can be brought into this year’s season.

“I always see it, my Twitter feed is always full of sayings from different coaches, and there’s one thing that I found at the end of last year, it was from a football player from the Super Bowl and it was ‘either you win or you learn,’ and I feel like that really encompassed our season last year that we didn’t have a whole lot of wins, but man I feel like we learned a lot that we can bring into this season,” Vanderpool said.