Leesville basketball players tried out for the women’s basketball team Oct. 31 through Nov. 2.
This year, two new coaches have taken charge of the varsity and junior varsity teams: Coach Crump for varsity, and Coach Warren for junior varsity. Coach Mundell is the assistant coach for junior varsity.
According to Alex Woods, there were fewer people trying out this year compared to past years.
“There were only about 8 people at JV tryouts,” said Jamie Durham, freshman. “But even though we had a small number of people, the coaches had very high expectations of us. There were times when I wanted to give up, but I didn’t. I improved every day I was there, and my teammates helped me through constructive criticism. I love my teammates; they’re very helpful.”
Tryouts consisted of sprints, defensive work, stretching, drills, ball handling and scrimmaging.
Alyssa Codispoti discussed how the new coaches handled tryouts. “Last year [the coaches] did different things every day,” said Codispoti. “This year we did the same thing everyday, so the coaches could watch for improvement.”
“I think we’re going to improve a lot this year because we’ve already improved at tryouts,” said Woods. “I know that since we have different coaches, the offense and defense this year will be different. It’ll be interesting to see how the offense matches up with other players in the Cap-8.”
“My expectations for this year are to strengthen our program by being competitive with other schools, for the girls to have fun, build their self-confidence and to bring Leesville basketball back to the level it was ten years ago when I played,” said Mundell.
