Shooting for Greatness: With few returning players this season, girls basketball hopes to build a culture of respect and equality among all their players

Girls basketball will start their new season on Dec. 3 for “Night at the Castle,” where varsity will play against multiple rival schools. However, with only eight girls returning from last year’s JV/varsity team, the girls feel like they’re “starting from scratch” with a mostly new group of girls to train, according to varsity player and senior Brie Murdoch.

“[Seniors] all had different reasons for leaving,” Murdoch said. “I think it became a really stressful environment. And after playing [basketball] for so many years, for their senior year, they don’t want to have to deal with [the pressure].”

According to Murdoch, spending every day after school practicing together, disagreements and tension are inevitable. Murdoch emphasizes the need for teammates to connect off the court and outside of school.

“I know we see each other all in basketball, but it’s apparent that no one [acts like themselves] while they’re playing,” Murdoch said. “So we want [the team] to have a healthy balance of getting to see the person that you’re playing with off the court too.”

As returning seniors who’ve played all four years, Murdoch and the other senior girls want to build a positive culture for girls basketball — whether it’s with team dinners after games or team bonding events like laser tag — and encourage girls to stay on the team all four years.

“My goal as a senior is to really make sure that morale on the team is up and to make sure people are actually getting along,” senior Laine Birch said. “People want to be motivated to come to games.”

For players like junior Paige Stanfield, basketball isn’t even their “main” sport. She practices softball, but takes a break for her “secondary sport” every winter.

Stanfield understands that a commitment to basketball can be more intense than most fall or spring sports, with a significantly longer season, lasting nearly six months. She believes this is partially responsible for the “senior burnout” this year.

“It really just depends on how you want to have your priorities,” Stanfield said. “Some people prioritize their friends and want to hang out with others, which is completely fine, it’s great in fact. But I think committing to a sport and really prioritizing one thing can help you later in life.”

It can also be discouraging for players who make this commitment to end up not getting playing time in games, according to senior Laine Birch, who attended every game for JV and varsity while playing last year.

This is because the girls team combines JV and varsity on a single roster. For Murdoch and Birch, this means the two teams share a playbook and host joint practices.

Coach Doug Archer believes the combined rosters are beneficial, allowing him to bring up players without issue, allowing him to “mix players in whenever they’re needed.”

But spending entire games on the bench or attending combined film sessions for games you don’t even play in can be frustrating for players, according to Birch.

“I continued to play because I wanted to bring both sides together,” Murdoch said. “I started on JV as a freshman, and now I’m here as a senior on varsity. I think it’s important that everyone feels really connected on the team, because it is a team sport. Since we see each other for six months, we do become friends and support each other.”

Creating this “culture” started with the summer recreational league games earlier this year. By getting girls excited for the basketball season, they can bond together and avoid the revolving door of players they experienced in the past.

During the tournament for new and returning players, the girls can play with their future teammates without worrying about consequences or silly mistakes, according to Birch.

“[The tournament] gives you kind of a vibe check for the year,” Birch said. “I say this summer was one of the best that we’ve had. A lot of people came out and people were happy to be there.”

Since tryouts started on Nov. 18, the girls have attempted to recreate a fun team environment. According to Murdoch, the team wants to focus on communication and selflessness into the season after learning from their experience over the summer.

“[Players] can be awful, ” Murdoch said. “And if you can still have fun when you play with people, then I don’t see any reason we should pay attention to the score sometimes.”