After falling one game and 9 points short of securing a spot in the playoffs last season, the Girl’s Basketball Team is back and better than ever. With the realignment this past summer, the Raptors have now moved to 2A and will face some new opponents in their hopes to reach the playoffs. Despite the loss of 7 seniors last season, the morale is high as the girls look to win out this season. 

Over the summer, Coach Jones revealed his plans to reduce the roster from 15 players to 13 players. With this new change, the hopes of a successful season are high as everyone is ready to play. The 22-23 roster includes five additions to the team: Street Wilson (’25), Sophia Benich (’25), Lindsey Griffin (’25), Emma Herrin (’24), and Caroline Spann (’24), along with eight returning players: Kate Gieg (’23), Livia Carroll (’23), Abby Brauchle (’24), Cliffie Manuel (’24), Grace Reuben (’24), Holly Manning (’24), Caroline Uram (’24), and Evie Walldorf (’25). Street is excited to be a part of the varsity team this season so she “can finally learn what BG means”. BG is our garden gnome that joined the team last season to serve as a “good luck charm” and can be found on the sideline of our games or in the back of my car. BG’s real name has been kept as a varsity team secret. Has BG really brought us any luck? Come to a game to see for yourself. 

This past Monday, the team was graciously given tickets to attend the College of Charleston versus the University of Richmond men’s basketball game. The night started off great after Coach Jones gave the team his credit card to head to the concession stand. This was thoroughly enjoyed by the entire team. While most of the team went for the popcorn/candy and a drink route, Evie and Street were spotted using their concession allowance for a baja shrimp taco and pulled pork sliders. They are confident that they made the right decision as Evie says, “they were really good”. After the snack situation was settled, we sat down to begin watching the game. This is where the real drama began. Half of the team soon became aware that they were sitting in the wrong seats, which really angered some of the rightful seat holders. Luckily, this was soon worked out and we were able to enjoy the rest of the game. Although CofC held a distinct lead for the majority of the game, Richmond came back and even got ahead near the end of the fourth quarter. The game went into overtime as the end of regulation ended 81-81. After a five minute overtime, the Cougars were able to come out on top 92-90.

At the beginning of this season, it was announced that we would be having two new coaches join the team. There is now a new varsity assistant coach, Coach Dee, and a new head JV coach, Coach M. In the past, Coach Dee has coached at Laing Middle School, Moultrie Middle School, and several AAU teams. Coach M was most recently the varsity assistant coach at Burke and also has years of experience coaching in Pennsylvania and North Charleston. We are so excited for these new additions to our program! Coach Dee has been working with the team a lot on ball handling, hence the new dribbling goggles. If you have come to any girls games since last season, you have definitely noticed the entire team wearing knee pads. The new requirement of knee pads was not met well by the team but Coach was very stern on us wearing them during games (and now practices), so you can imagine what everyone was thinking when Coach Jones pulled out these new goggles. Luckily, these are strictly for ball handling drills and you will not be seeing the team wearing these during the games. Holly has no comment on this matter.