Looking Forward to a New Season of Girls' Basketball
By Melissa Patrick 11-20-13
Although Coach Mike has been coaching the girls’ basketball team for a total of four years, he has been a coach since 1980. He came to Clark to turn the rag-tag teams into all-star players. After sitting down and talking to him, he seems like he’ll do just that.
Q: Who do you think are the top players this season?
A: Bobbi Floyd has been our leading scorer. Johnice Bland is a senior; she’s very athletic and does a lot of good things on defense. Ci’Quadya Belser runs our point really well. We have people coming off of the bench to help the team this year. The whole varsity team is very talented. Monique Daniels and JennyLynn Vasquez are really going to help the team. The whole team is very balanced. Ci’Quadya is going for a state record of having 300 assists.
Q: Who do you think shows the most potential?
A: Well, Bobbi has already received a full ride to Delaware University. The young freshmen look good. Carli Becker and Fryda Laija have shown the most improvement since intramurals began. On varsity the potential is unlimited. We have Monique as a freshman and Jenny as a sophomore who are both on varsity. Even Johnice as a senior, if she reaches her full potential she can explode. We’re going to do the best we can this season so I am extremely excited.
Q: How do you think the season will go?
A: We’re looking to go to the conference championship. Faith Lutheran, the defending state champion, is in the conference, and they beat us twice last year, but we didn’t play well those times. I think this year we’re more mature and the team is more balanced. We will definitely go to playoffs. I think we have a chance to go to state. We just have to play our own game and not worry about anybody else.
Q: What makes you the most excited about coaching these girls?
A: I like this team. I took over the program four years ago and I have to be honest, I really didn’t like the players. When I first came to Clark the record was five wins and seventy-five loses. In my third year we made it to playoffs, which was last year. These girls made the change. After the first year I got rid of all of the older players because they had bad attitudes. Then we had freshmen. Now they’re sophomores and juniors, and I attribute the team’s success to these girls. I like my team, I like every level, I think the program is going in the right direction, and I have outstanding coaches. It’s exciting because we’re having fun. We want the kids to have fun but we’re serious about practice.
Q: What are your goals for this year?
A: We want to win conference and go to state. Can we do it? I don’t know, but I believe that they’re good enough. A lot of things need to happen on the floor. We need to play together and we need to keep our grades up so no one has to be missing games by suspension. If we play together we can do anything.
Q: Do you think this year’s teams are better than last year’s?
A: Absolutely, we’ve gotten better every year. This is the most depth we’ve had here at Clark since I started. We probably have eight girls on varsity that I don’t have to be afraid to make a substitution, which is going to make us a better team. That way we can press and run. In the past years we have been one-dimensional. Now we can do what our team is meant to do, run and press, and it’s going to be fun. We’re going to be fun to watch.
Q: Is there going to be a freshman team?
A: Yes, there is. We have about nine to ten girls on the freshmen team. The philosophy we are implementing this season is a running pressure defense system. I’m going to play everyone this year; no one is going to be left out. I really appreciate the hard work that they do.
Q: What do you see as your toughest challenge going into the season?
A: We’re playing everybody. We’re going against the number five-ranked team in the country, Bishop Gorman, on Martin Luther King weekend. They beat teams by 50-60 points, so we’re going to have to be ready. Then we’re playing the number twenty team the next weekend, and that’s a tough challenge, but the toughest challenge is getting the girls to believe in themselves and to play consistently every night. If they do that, everything take cares of itself.