A rather uninformed preview: Asbury women’s basketball

As many of you may know or may have noticed, I won’t be covering Asbury College athletics nearly as much this year as I did last year due to some…er…circumstances. However, I have invested enough of my time in the last five years to the teams, particularly basketball, and enough people have read this blog solely for updates on their favorite teams/kids, that I feel I should be doing at least something to gauge how much interest still exists. So I call this a rather uninformed preview because I haven’t interviewed any coaches or players this year, and I have seen the teams play only a couple of times. But I’ll do my best.

Basically you may not recognize the women’s team this year save for a couple of old faces. Well not old faces — sophomore faces. Last year’s core group of freshmen Courtney Albin, Ellen Gray, Hayley Spivey, Demetria Todd and Christy Gemmell are back this year, and they are ready to lead this group of twelve (12, doce, a dozen) freshmen to build on last season’s school record 15 wins. Sarah Yates, the senior who has been hit with the hard luck of playing out of position for two years and then tearing her ACL right before the KIAC tournament during her emerging junior year, also returns — but is hurt to begin the year.

The big loss on the roster is graduated senior Anna Stephenson, who was the school leader in blocks and was a perennial all-conference player over the previous three seasons. Head Coach Bart Flener will try to get some of her production back with a combination of freshmen Lakin Griffith (5′10″ Elliot Co.), Lyndsay Figgins (5′11″ Simon Kenton), Caitlyn Figgins (5′11″ Simon Kenton) and Keira Henderson (5′10″ Lincoln Co.). From the three halves I’ve seen this season, the eye test tells me that Griffith and Henderson will probably be the two that will get the most opportunities to fill that position. Todd will have to reprise the interior defender position she held last year.

As far as guard play goes, the situation is nearly identical to last year’s with the big exception of freshman Laura Carrol (5′4″ Paintsville) who has been very impressive to me through the first couple of games. She’s not polished by a long shot, but it’s obvious that she has the skills to be a productive point guard once she gets college experience under her belt. She had 16 points in a win over Virginia Intermont and 11 more in a huge overtime victory against Union. She came out of high school as a decorated scorer with a sweet jump shot, plus she’s handled the ball quite a bit for Asbury this season. She could be an important player that forces defenses to play honest against Albin.

Speaking of, Albin and Gray haven’t shown any signs of losing production from last season. They are leading the team with 18.3 and 11.3 ppg respectively through four games. Albin is such a crucial player that can do all things — play the point, shoot, drive and pass — and is a vocal leader on the team as well. Gray crashes the boards well for a player who likes to stay around the perimeter, and although she has made only 6 of her 22 3-pointers so far this year, I have little doubt she will work her way back up into the 38 percent range from last year.

Asbury sits at 2-2 after that 19-point, come-from-behind win over Union, which is one of those games that could set the precedent for the rest of the season. There are a few new names on the schedule, and I wouldn’t dare make a prediction, but if one or two of the post players can become impact players at some point in the season, I see no reason the Eagles wouldn’t make some noise in the KIAC.