Blue Ridge returns its entire girls basketball roster from 2023-24.
A new season of basketball is starting for Blue Ridge Early College, and for coach Tim Mayse, who leads the girls’ team at the school, the future is looking bright and ambitious.
“I expect us to be able to compete in every game and give good effort and play hard from the beginning of the game to the end of the game. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to improve our record this year on last year’s record. Those are our main two goals,” he said.
Mayse said one of the benefits this season is that the current roster is essentially the same as last season, with only one new player, which he added will allow more time to prepare for the new season.
“Currently we have eight players, we have two juniors and then we have six sophomores. We returned everybody back from last year’s team, so I’m hoping that the familiarity within our offense and defensive schemes will allow us to spend some more time fine tuning,” he said. “We do have one new member, Kimber Allen. She’s a sophomore. She’s a new player for us.
Additional team members this season include sophomores April Corona, Brooklyn Kenney, Bailey Conkrite, Amber Ward and Analia Garcia, alongside juniors Hope Ward and McKenzie Woods.
Compared to last season, Mayse said he doesn’t plan to change anything for the team in terms of approach, but instead will focus on locking in on the team’s strengths and improving on weaknesses, such as ball handling.
“I’m not really introducing anything new to the team this year, so we’re just trying to get better, trying to improve our weaknesses and our strengths of the team,” he said. “I think ball handling and decision making are definitely areas that we can improve.”
The first home game of the season will be held on Nov. 21 against Shining Rock Classical Academy. The girls game starts at 6 p.m., followed by the boys at 7:30 p.m.
Mayse concluded by expressing optimism for the future, showcasing excitement for the new season and its potential growth of its players.
“I’ve just seen the growth of our players looking forward to saying if we have gotten better since last year and if we’re able to prove that on the court. We’ve been working hard in preseason thus far. So, you know, we’re excited to get out on the floor show what we’re worth this year,” he said.