Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Grace Uldrich (40) is one of two seniors for Vestavia Hills this season and is the Lady Rebels' top rebounder from last year.
Laura Casey believes a basketball team needs to possess three attributes in order to find ultimate success: skill, team chemistry and experience.
The Vestavia Hills High School girls basketball team had two of those last year. All that was lacking was experience.
“There were a lot of games that we look back on, now that we’ve watched our film, we made a lot of errors based on our lack of experience,” said Casey, Lady Rebels head coach. “You could see that in almost every game we played.”
But over the course of 28 games last season, Casey is hopeful that the acquired experience will pay dividends beginning this season.
“We’ve got some pretty high expectations” she said. “We’re excited. We’ve seen a lot of growth over the summer.”
However, that growth process is still ongoing for what will be a young team once again during the 2018-19 season.
Casey said, “It’d be crazy to say that because we’re a year older, we’re magically going to get there. That’s now how that works. But I certainly think that we know that our biggest struggle is how to make decisions, and that’s something that we’re all very aware of and that’s something that we’ve tailored our preseason work to develop that.”
Vestavia Hills graduated just two players from last year’s squad and returns all of its starting lineup for much of last season. There are two seniors this time around, as Courtney Milner and Grace Uldrich will help lead the way.
Milner started for the Lady Rebels as a sophomore, but a pair of ACL injuries kept her out of game action all of last year.
“Her willingness to stick around and continue working and wanting to come back her senior year has been really cool to watch,” Casey said.
Uldrich will anchor Vestavia Hills in the paint and returns as the team’s leading rebounder.
The leading scorer is also back for the Lady Rebels, in junior Anna Wood. Known primarily as a knock-down shooter her first couple years in high school, Casey said she has become more of a threat in other facets of the game.
“I’ve loved watching her improvement in her skills and how quickly she gets the ball off [on her shot],” Casey said. “She has the ability to take the ball to the hole and can be very aggressive on defense. She can be a very dangerous player.”
Freshman twins Emma and Ally Smith return as well, after making instant impacts with the varsity team last season despite being in middle school. Alison Stubbs is a tough defender and Arden Plugge has grown several inches, and they will each provide unique roles for theteam.
Josie Edwards is a shooter and someone who has a “knack” for coming up with rebounds. Meghan Meadows and Caroline Whitcomb will also provide valuable minutes.
Casey has been impressed with how quickly each player has accepted and embraced her role.
“They know it’s not one player who wins a game or one player who loses a game,” she said. “They are at the point where they don’t really care who is scoring, it’s just a matter that we’re getting it done and doing it together.”
Vestavia Hills begins its season on Nov. 8 at Chelsea.
