By Kyle Troutman ktroutman@cassville-democrat.com
The tallest Wheaton girls basketball player this season was only 5-4, but the Lady Bulldogs did not let age or size challenges squash their growth on the court this season.
Finishing at 5-22, Wheaton Coach Jessica Dermott said a squad of only seven players, three of whom were freshmen, met many individual goals and continued to improve through the season.
“We improved at getting better at the things that were going wrong at the beginning of the season,” Dermott said. “They did continue to improve no matter what the situation was.”
The Lady Bulldogs’ first win this season was in the Verona Tournament over Purdy, 49-47, and the Lady Eagles became a thorn over the course of the year.
After another win, 61-47, over Purdy in the Southwest Tournament, the Lady Eagles took the lead. They won the regular-season matchup, 45-38, then ended Wheaton’s season in the district quarterfinals, 37-31. Other wins for Wheaton this season were over New Covenant, 39-31; Verona, 38-31; and Exeter, 51-33.
Dermott said in future seasons, she hopes her Lady Bulldogs can keep showing fight.
“[They have to] continue to fight and give effort, even when things aren’t going the way they would want them to on the floor,” she said. “Not one game in particular [stood out this season], but when they’d show up and all be playing their hardest is when it was too exciting to watch and coach.”
Dermott said the underclassmen were asked to step into major roles this season, as only one senior was on the team.
“They’ve had to do a lot this year and learned quickly,” she said. “They’ll only continue to get better as they grow and mature. We knew this year would be tough losing our height and numbers, but regardless of our tallest girl being 5-4, we never quit playing hard and trying to do the best we could.”
The building from youth will continue next season, Dermott said, as more freshmen are set to join the squad.
“We will be bringing in a lot of freshmen, so we will be young again,” she said. ”We will have to learn how to continue to work together and learn our roles on the team.”
