Girard girls change things up heading into new season
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After beating South Range in both of the previous two matchups, Girard felt confident heading into its third and final meeting of the 2024-25 season with the Raiders in the playoffs. The confidence soon turned to frustration, though, as the Indians left Beaver Township in February with a 37-36 season-ending loss.
Girard head girls basketball coach Joe Bornemiss had plenty of time to think about the defeat, and he decided as a result, despite winning the Northeast 8 Athletic Conference (NE8), to shake things up over the summer.
"We had a really good offseason," Bornemiss said. "Of course, we run our summer league through Girard, so we played quite a bit. But we did a couple things different this year. We did a lot of skills-opportunity stuff on Sundays, individual stuff just to clean up some things that I thought we needed work on from last year, as far as making decisions with the basketball and doing the right things, rebounding, just some little things. Sometimes kids don't think they're important, but you could see it paying off as they continued that kind of skill stuff."
"Making decisions with the basketball is key," he continued. "If you have good guards - I don't care what any coach tells you in high school basketball - if you have good guards that can handle the basketball and make good decisions, you're going to win a bunch of games."
Over the first two seasons with Bornemiss at the helm, the Indians won 25 games and were one more away in 2024 from back-to-back league titles. Much of that success can be attributed to Girard's pressure-oriented defense, which limited opponents to fewer than 40 points per game last year, and, in Monday's season opener vs. Columbiana, held the Clippers to just 15 points.
Bornemiss said he really liked what he saw from his defense in the first official action of the season, particularly due to the work he, his coaching staff and his players put in to resolve issues on that end of the floor.
"One thing we discussed, with the pressure that we play with, a lot of times we got in foul trouble," Bornemiss said of last year. "We weren't in the right position, we were playing defense with our hands and not with our feet. Not only did we practice it, we talked about it, we sat the girls down, we watched film, and we told them, the way that you guys press, you don't have to be face-up on them; you could be a foot away from them, and you know your other girl's coming to help you. And I'll tell you what, it really showed on Monday. It really did. We pressured up the whole game. We didn't get in foul trouble. We trapped real well. And those kinds of things paid off. The girls listened to what we were talking about, and you could see it on Monday."
Coming into the season, Bornemiss said winning the NE8 had a positive effect on his team's confidence, as well as proof that playing together and for each other can lead to hard-earned championships.
However, the Indians knew they would face at least one major challenge from last season to this one: the graduation of Makenzee White.
The only senior and one of only three Girard players to average more than 4 points per game, White's high-energy, high-effort style could be felt throughout the Indians' 13-11 campaign last season. And a key product of her activity - rebounds - will certainly be missed.
"We knew we could fill the void of her scoring. My concern was her rebounding," Bornemiss said. "Makenzee was almost a double-double for me for two years. That was our concern."
Fortunately, Bornemiss said he feels as if he has found some of the glass-cleaning production that White took with her. Specifically, in addition to Brooke Perry and Ivory Hewitt, Girard got the boards it needed Monday from Caylee Wilkes, who had 10 rebounds to go along with her 21 points. Still, he expects his team to be more aggressive than usual in crashing the glass in hopes of several players' few rebounds per game adding up in the long run.
Wilkes, whether it's rebounding, scoring, passing or playing defense, will be among the most relied-upon players for the Indians this season. The second-leading scorer on last year's team, Wilkes averaged 12.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 2.8 steals per game as a sophomore.
Helping her steer the Indians will be the likes of Ally Gassman, Girard's returning points, rebounds and assists leader, as well as Perry, Hewitt, junior Gianna Schubert and freshman Janaya Riley, the latter of whom had 12 points in her first high school game.
Riley, Bornemiss said, has been helped by the leadership exhibited by the group of experienced upperclassmen on his team.
"This is my third year," Bornemiss said. "Ally was a sophomore when she started for me, and Kaylee and Schubert were freshmen. They're almost like seniors. They're so comfortable on the floor. They know what I expect, and that just trickles down."
Although Girard will begin to defend the NE8 championship with its conference opener at Hubbard on Dec. 4, Bornemiss, whose teams are 20-4 in NE8 play, is adamant that the Indians are focused on the here and now, including Monday's game at LaBrae, despite their league title and postseason ambitions.
"If you step back a couple years, the girls, I think, looked at the schedule a little bit more, were concerned with it," Bornemiss said. "Not that we're not concerned, but they know how it is with what I preach; it's one game at a time. We don't take anything above the next game, the next Monday or the next Thursday. We don't look at anything beyond that."