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»lt;io»26—fri«fay, Nowmbr 29; 1996 /3fty BILL BAUNTGazette Sports WriterNot many people know all the new faces, that will fill the-ranks of the Indiana High girls basketball team this season. •' ■Fortunately, the man who probably, knows them , best is also their new head coach;Dave Woodall, a long-time part Of the Indiana program: as a girls junior high coach, has moved up to take over as the varsity coach due to Cathy .Torchia’s departure.; But Wooodall • is doing far more • than simply taking over a successful program that takes WPIAL playoff appearances for granted. He must face a brutal schedule without a marquee player and virtually no experienced performers.For a team that churned out three collegiate players last year and a host of others over the previous decade, this year will mark a definite change in the status quo. ■“We’ll just have to work for everything we. get,” said Woodall, 'the school’s eighth-grade coach for the past six years. .“We’ll have towork on skills and play a lot harder.”Indiana will, indeed, need to work hard without having four-year stal-5 warts Megan Woodall and Kristy I Thomas or the inside play of Megan \ Smith. The three AH-Gazette picks * have been lost to graduation. t “We are not going to talk a lot J about how youngwe are,” said ’ Woodall. “We should be able to i compete and it will be up to us to get | better.” -I Woodall opened ali positions when . | preseason drills: began and some 1 personnel. moves are undecided. A ' i very tentative backecurt has junior } Trisha'/Pollock moving -from her j: point guard spot Of Irist year over to ; i shootingVguard. Freshman . Jessica | Peterson will take on the burden of playirigfthe point, i I : The inside will be built around {center Brandy: Henderson. A 5-foot-! 11 junior, Henderson has limitediivarsity experience but is vital since‘ the Indians lack height.“The size thing is going to be a bigt factor,” said Woodall. “‘As it is, we’ll5 have to pressure in the baekcourt a t lot because we can’t l«et people get *. into:a: half-court game. We’re just not that big.”t ; Senior Emily Hogan, a dependable •reserve last year, is among the y half-dozen, or-so players Woodall \ plans to rotate into the riiix;.'Junior• Jill Campbell;‘sophomores Kristen' t Wells, Beth : Stewart and , Bridget. I Maruca and freshman Danielle Sin-? elair should have prominent roles.6 “We’re going to play a lot of iman-to-man with pressure,” -said• Woodall. -“So we’ll be using a lot of t people. But the challenge is that our \ sophomores will be skipping over• that jy year and our two freshmen• will be skipping over two years.”| v Making that challenge more diffi-• cult is Indiana’s schedule. Greens-• burg Salem and Derry, two schools t Indiana has dominated through the \ years, have, dropped to Class AAA.• i Therefore, Section I has been re-‘ duced -to - a more competitive six-team field. It is expected that Kiski fjrlArea and Latrobe will be particular-ly formidable^ The top three teams| qualify for. the playoffs, g Traditional-powers Upper St.5 Clair, Father Geibel and Greens-| burg Central Catholic are all on the g slate.: Erie’s McDowell is in town g this weekend for the annual tip-offtournament, arid iihproved Ringgold6 is another tough rion-confererice foe. $ The team must also travel to New $ Castle arid Seneca Valley as part of a » WPIAL-mandated home-and-home % rotation. Those two will also make a g visit to the Fifth Street Gym.“We knew it would be a tough schedule, but it’s very good for us,” said Woodall, who is assisted by Otto g Peterson. “We will need to play, well § almost every garae.iii order to win. 5 It should be exciting.” -
Newspaper Details
Indiana Gazette
Indiana, Pennsylvania, US
Fri, Nov 29, 1996
Page 14
Full Page
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Anonymous
PA, USA 03 Apr 2022
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