Young and hungry

There is a gleam in Laura Casey’s eye when discussing the potential of this season’s Vestavia Hills High School girls basketball team. 

The roster is a mix of experience and youth. The Rebels return six players with varsity experience, but have just four juniors and seniors in the program, meaning the roster is filled out primarily of players who don’t yet have a driver’s license.

“We are young but hungry,” Casey said. “This is a fun group. They’re competitors, they love to get after it, which is very refreshing and makes what we do a lot of fun.”

It’s no secret that the last few seasons have been somewhat disappointing for the Rebels, but Vestavia Hills only graduated one player from last season’s squad. Asia Hill will be missed, “because she knew how to lead a team,” according to Casey. But the importance of a year of development and growth for the rest of the roster cannot be understated. 

“I’m looking forward to this year,” Casey said. “You look down the road as to who’s coming when, and this group is one that we had in our rec program, that has worked its way up.”

Olivia Starnes and Sarah Cain are the two seniors on this year’s squad, but neither were with the team full time at the outset of preseason practice. Starnes is a volleyball player, and Cain split time between basketball and softball during the offseason.

While not ideal, Casey uses that situation to implore the rest of the team to take ownership.

“We tell all of them this is their program,” she said. “We talk a lot about excellence and what that looks like.”

There is no concern over Starnes or Cain’s situation either, since they have been in the basketball program for so long.

Casey said, “They know what it takes to work hard. They know what it looks like to push themselves.”

Vestavia Hills has always prided itself on the defensive end, but there is hope that this year’s team will be able to push the pace on offense more than the last few years, leading to a more exciting brand of basketball.

“It’s going to be a lot faster,” Casey said. “We’re going to try to speed things up a little bit. You’ll hopefully see that on both ends of the floor.”

Part of being able to dictate tempo on offense is the ability to shoot at a high percentage and not give opponents an easy advantage. The Rebels should have the capability to make shots at an efficient rate.

“If we can shoot it before we ever get into an offense, we want to do that,” Casey said. “We want to let it fly and we’ve got kids that can shoot. If not, you’ll still see some of that playing through an offense or a situation. We’re certainly not getting rid of that.”

Courtney Milner, Grace Uldrich, Maddie Crane, Arden Plugge, Anna Wood, Alison Stubbs, Rachel Hall, Josie Edwards, and twins Ally and Emma Smith also made the varsity squad.

Casey said that one of the team’s big goals is to advance to the regional tournament this year, something that is certainly achievable if the team progresses as expected. The Rebels will begin the road to that goal the week of Nov. 6 in the McAdory Tip-Off Tournament.