Freshmen girls making an impact

In most high school basketball programs, freshmen either play on freshmen or reserve teams with hopes of getting into varsity games for a few minutes in the fourth quarter.

Several freshmen in Jackson County are making a much bigger impact this winter.

Freshmen girls who are varsity starters are Brianna Gillaspy at Seymour, Kaylee Bennett at Brownstown Central and Hannah Elkins, Mariah Campbell and Montana Wheeler at Medora.

Gillaspy, a starter at guard, was the setter on Seymour’s varsity volleyball team. She is the Lady Owls’ No. 3 scorer at 7 points per game.

Bennett started her varsity career with a double-double, scoring 12 points and pulling down 11 rebounds in the win at Mitchell last Friday.

Elkins is Medora’s leading scorer with a 14-point average. She tied a school record with six 3-point baskets against Rock Creek Academy and against Shawe Memorial.

Campbell is Medora’s No. 2 scorer at 11.5 points per game, while Wheeler is one of the Hornets’ top rebounders.
There are nine players on the Medora varsity team and five of them are freshmen.

Hornets coach Brad McCammon said, “One of the things I think, obviously, is they are great student-athletes, and they are quality people. They are sound athletically, and they blend in well with the upperclassmen, and the atmosphere around here has been very positive. They come to practice every day ready to compete. They’ve been able to blend in with high school players, and sometimes that is hard to do coming from middle school.

“My daughter (Kelsey) has been thrilled that they have stepped in. It has been a very enjoyable season at this point.”

He said the girls were able to win and have success in middle school, and he is glad that success has continued in high school.

McCammon has coached both boys and girls at Medora.

“The thing I like about this group of kids is they are eager to be successful and are coachable,” he said. “I’m not saying boys teams I’ve coached were not coachable and didn’t want to work to be successful. In talking to other coaches, they say the same thing, that girls are willing to learn. Boys may have more physical ability but girls are willing to get it done.”

Freshmen  also come off the been for Crothersville and Trinity Lutheran.

Rankings

Brownstown and Crothersville received votes again this week in the Indiana Coaches of Girls Sports Association poll.

Brownstown is tied for 13th in Class 2A and Crothersville is tied for 15th in Class A.

Most of the Jackson County teams will play two or more ranked opponents this season.

Ranked opponents on Seymour’s schedule include Jeffersonville, Bloomington South, Floyd Central, Rushville, Austin, Brownstown Central and South Central.

Ranked teams on Brownstown’s schedule include Austin and Eastern (Pekin), while Crothersville will face Austin, Waldron, New Washington, Eastern and South Central.

Medora and Trinity Lutheran will play Crothersville.

Tournament notes

The schedule for the Eastern Greene Holiday Tournament has been released.

The tournament will be played Dec. 29-30. The pool games will be played Dec. 29 and the bracket games are the following day.

In pool play, Brownstown will play Owen Valley Dec. 29 at 11:45 a.m. and Centerville at 4 p.m.

The Braves will play two games against teams from pool D in bracket play on Dec. 30. Bloomington North, Indianapolis Chatard and Indianapolis Arlington make up Pool D.

The Brownstown boys also will be playing games Dec. 29 and 30 in the Graber Post Buildings Classic at North Daviess.

The girls sectionals will begin Feb. 9 and the boys sectionals will begin March 2.

Class 4A sectionals will be played at Seymour (boys) and Floyd Central (girls); sectionals for Class 2A will be at Austin (girls) and Paoli (boys) and the Class A sectionals will be at Orleans (girls) and Springs Valley (boys).