FORTVILLE — Every day, somebody different is stepping up.
That’s both good and bad for the Mt. Vernon girls basketball team.
The Marauders, who graduated four seniors, including leading scorer and rebounder Sophie Williams, are heading into the 2018 season with a very young team, in search of consistency.
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The team has one senior, two juniors, and a whole slew of freshman and sophomores this year.
“We have a lot of good freshman and sophomores,” Mt. Vernon coach Julie Shelton said. “The problem is consistency. For us to have an actual go-to player or leader, or somebody that is consistently good, I think it’ll take until Christmas or longer. Every day in practice it’s somebody different.”
Shelton is back for her second season in a row with Mt. Vernon after previously coaching the team for 16 years. She sees a lot of similarities to where her team ended up last year.
The Marauders finished the 2017-18 season with an 11-15 record, finishing 4-3 in the Hoosier Heritage Conference, good for fourth place.
They advanced to the sectional final, falling to county rival New Palestine after beating the Dragons in the regular season and ending their nine-game winning streak, an example of the up-and-down year the team had.
The season record isn’t the biggest concern for Shelton or her team. They are intentionally loading up the schedule with big-name opponents to prepare the team for a tournament run and to compete in the HHC, where New Palestine returns eight seniors and Pendleton Heights also brings back a majority of last year’s HHC-championship team.
That’s just Shelton’s style, now. That’s what she plans to do for however long she stays at Mt. Vernon.
It almost paid off with a sectional title last year.
“We’re trying to play North Central, Warren Central. If we’re ever going to, at 4A, be able to compete again, we’re going to have to be able to beat those teams,” Shelton said. “I’m not sure that the rest of the time I’m here our season record will ever be much above .500. I’m not too worried about that. I want conference and sectional.
“It’s that fine line. You don’t want to have so many losses that kids lose confidence and they don’t think they can win, but you also don’t want to win 20 games and lose in the sectional because you think you’re really good.”
Mt. Vernon will rely a lot on junior Sydnee Perry, who is the leading returning scorer after averaging 9.9 points per game last year. She also added 2.0 rebounds per game and 3.0 steals per game as a sophomore.
Shelton identified Perry as a go-to player on the team, someone expected to be a leader for the young Marauders.
“I’m excited to kind of lead them, kind of show them what we expect, what to do,” Perry said. “It’s pressure, but good pressure to have. I’m fortunate to be in that position. I feel honored to have it.”
She will have plenty of help around her. The other junior on the team, Tessa Freeman, averaged 4.6 points and 3.5 rebounds per game last year. Freeman, along with sophomores Lexi Shelton and Abby Worley, each played more than 10 minutes per game last year and should be big pieces moving forward.
Also figuring into the equation are sophomore Olivia Yeley, fresh off a volleyball season, and two freshmen from the soccer team, Maddie Swingle and Shay Shipley.
“Maddie Swingle has a chance to be really good. She’s a really good athlete,” Shelton said. “Olivia Yeley did not play since her seventh-grade year, but she’s really good at volleyball and decided to come back out. Abby Worley will play point guard this year. As a freshman, she started at the end of last year. Lexi Shelton will play. Yeley, Swingle and Shay Shipley will be important.”
Multisport athletes make up the majority of this year’s Marauders team.
Players like Yeley, Swingle and Shipley bring a lot of athleticism to the court. There’s also a learning curve, which provides challenges for a young team looking to rebuild and get back to the winning ways of the 2013 state championship team.
“That’s part of it, too,” Shelton said. “We have 20 kids, and I think 17 of them are two- or three-sport athletes. We don’t have a lot of basketball kids. We’re really athletic in some spots, but really raw skill-wise.”
Along with experience, the Marauders also are somewhat lacking in height.
They are working on turning that potential weakness into a strength, though.
“We’re a lot smaller than last year, so we’re going to have to work on running the court more and more on defense,” Perry said. “We’ve been good as a team and working together, encouraging each other. Our quickness and defense has been a lot for us. We’re a lot littler, so we just run a lot. That’s kind of our advantage this year, not so much height. That’s our strong suit.”
One of the goals this year is taking back the conference title. Mt. Vernon won five titles in a row this decade, from 2009-10 to 2014-15.
The Marauders haven’t won a sectional title since the state championship run in 2013 and haven’t won a share of the HHC title since 2015.
Those are both trends they want to reverse.
“A big goal is conference and sectionals. A winning season would be good for us too,” Perry said. “We’re just focused on conference and getting it back this year.”
The season starts with several winnable games and several that will prove a challenge, more aimed at getting the team experience against tough teams so they can make those goals a reality.
The early learning curve is a fairly large one. Shelton said she knows it might take a few months to get the team to where it needs to be, but she’s hopeful to be in a similar position to last year by the end of it.
“I’m trying to be patient with the freshman and sophomores and hope that we just compete and we put ourselves in the position to have a chance to win,” she said. “Hopefully we do. If we don’t, then we’ve had all that experience for the next two years.
“I hope to kind of even out by tournament time and have a shot.”
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Coach: Julie Shelton
Last season: 11-15, lost to New Palestine in sectional final
Top returnees: Lindsey Hartl, senior; Sydnee Perry and Tessa Fressman, juniors; Lexi Shelton and Abby Worley, sophomores
Key newcomers: Olivia Yeley, sophomore; Maddie Swingle and Shay Shipley, freshmen
What to expect: Losing four seniors will hurt the Marauders, but they bring back several key pieces and have plenty of promising young talent on the roster. Having a coach with Julie Shelton’s winning background will certainly help the team get up to speed. The Marauders should get plenty of scoring from Perry and Lexi Shelton, who averaged 8.2 points and 4.1 rebounds per game last year. This will be a team that prides itself on its defense and its speed – they will push the tempo a lot. The overall record should hover around .500 for the year, and if the young players acclimate quickly, Mt. Vernon should be competitive in both the HHC and the state tournament.
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Next week in the Daily Reporter, we’ll take a closer look at the other three Hancock County girls basketball teams, leading into Thursday’s season-opening games.
Tuesday: What will Greenfield-Central look like with a new coach?
Wednesday: How far can eight seniors take New Palestine?
Thursday: How are things looking for Eastern Hancock?
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