Quantcast
skip navigation

Swanville returns five players with good experience

By Taylor Lunemann, Long Prairie Leader, 11/23/11, 3:56PM CST

Share

Schultz expected to step into shooting guard role left open by graduated Pelzer


Captain Molly Jordan

The Swanville Bulldogs girls’ basketball season opened up with their first practice last Monday. For head coach Aaron Gapinski, it is another season where he looks towards continued improvement.

In his third year of coaching, the team’s goal is to reach a .500 record for the first time in quite awhile.


“I have gone from five wins to six wins in the last two seasons,” Gapinski said. “I see no reason why we can’t double that number and jump to 12.”


The Bulldogs only lost one player from last year’s team, their shooting guard Holly Pelzer.


Abbey Schultz will be expected to fill her position this year. She has varsity experience so Gapinski feels it will be a smooth transition.


Other than Schultz, the Bulldogs will return their other four starters. They included Marissa Evans, Molly Jordan, Lexi Loven, and Tiffany Barthel.


This core group of players have been key to Gapinski’s rebuilding over the last two years. He feels the extra year of varsity experience will help the team immensely.


Swanville will have a few strengths this season. “Overall, the team has good speed, and our starters have played together a lot for the last three years,” Gapinski said. “They’re starting to click, and we’re moving ourselves in the right direction.”


The weak part of the Swanville team will be numbers. The team only consists of 13 players grades 9-12, so Gapinski plans on bringing up some eighth graders to log some junior varsity minutes. “We will need some younger players to step up to give our starters a breather,” Gapinski said.


After the starting five, the experience for the bench is very slim, so there will be added pressure to the starters to get in shape to be able to stay in the game.


The Bulldogs did some work in the offseason in preparation for this year. They attended the Forrest and Taylor Witt team camp over the summer.


They had a lot of open gyms and also did a 10,000 shot club and a 200 hour club that many of the girls completed.


The girls will open up the season at home against Osakis on Dec. 2.


www.lpleader.com

 

 

Related Stories

  • On the court, Chloe’s ‘secret storm’ clears

  • By Chip Scoggins, Star Tribune 03/13/2024, 3:00pm CDT
  • When she was younger, Chloe Johnson’s life was consumed by battles with obsessive-compulsive disorder and another rare condition. Rather than hide her challenges, the 14-year-old has used basketball to meet them head on.
  • Read More