Published: November 10, 2008 11:05 pm         

Gaining experience: North girls basketball opens 2008-09 season tonight looking to grow as team

TERRE HAUTE — There was a time, not very long ago, when Terre Haute North figured to be one of the most experienced girls high school basketball teams in the Wabash Valley.

But, as coach Mike Allen said a few days ago, “It’s been a crazy last two weeks.”

Instead of nine returnees, seven of those regulars, from a team with a deceptive 7-13 record last season, the Patriots have just five letterwinners back. Three members of the previously deep team decided not to play this year and little Lynsey Butler, whose clutch outside shooting as a freshman and sophomore made her a fan favorite, has moved to Florida.

So Allen has all but hung up a “help wanted” sign on his office door as the Patriots prepare for their season opener tonight at Turkey Run and the HI-99 Clabber Girl Classic first round at West Vigo on Wednesday. Some of the younger Patriots will get a chance to become varsity players before too long, but he’s not sure who those players are yet.

“Opportunities are there,” the coach said. “We just don’t know who’s going to take them.”

He is sure about a few of the players he still has back, however, so the picture isn’t entirely bleak.

Start with Kelly Meggs, as a lot of Patriot discussions do. The 5-foot-7 junior was a key member of North’s sectional championship team as a freshman and has been a starter since the middle of that season.

She has great quickness, competes like crazy and can shoot, defend or slash to the basket with the best players in the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference.

Meggs has a mirror image, right down to right-handed vs. left-handed, in 5-8 junior Lindy Jones, or at least she will when Jones is completely recovered from physical problems that plagued her during cross country season. And Danielle Ketner, another 5-7 junior who logged junior varsity time last season mostly because there was a glut of guards then, gives the Patriots a three-player rotation in backcourt that stacks up well with a lot of teams.

Up front the Patriots have two returnees in 6-0 Emily Adams, the team’s only senior, and 5-9 junior Francesca McCarthy. Adams is strong and physical, and McCarthy plays bigger than her size around the basket but also can handle the ball well enough to play the other positions.

If Allen could play those five at the same time for 32 minutes a game, he’d have a pretty representative team. But some of them play too hard not to need an occasional break, and some of them are foul-prone. Some fit both scenarios, in fact.

The other two players listed on a seven-player varsity roster right now are 5-3 junior Ashley Burkins, who will add more depth and a lot more quickness to the backcourt, and 5-8 junior Lindsay Eilbracht, who can be an offensive threat from a wing position.

After that? “It’s kind of opened up for kids who might want to step up,” Allen said.

Two who might get a chance to show what they have are 5-10 junior Samantha Watson and 6-0 sophomore Mary Kate Etling, simply because they also can play under the basket. “We’ve got to have more bodies up there,” Allen noted.

But otherwise the challenges early are obvious.

“We’ll have to take care of the basketball and do a little better job executing on offense,” Allen said. “Defensively we’ll try to put pressure on the ball, because we’re not very big … but we’ll probably change our philosophy a little bit because we’re not as deep [as in the past].

“We’ll probably struggle early,” he concluded, “until we get more experience and figure who’s going to do what and when.”