by Rusty Ellis
Cookeville Lady Cavs
The 2022-23 rendition of the Cookeville Lady Cavs saw the season get off to a rocky start with a tough loss at Blackman, but quickly rebounded with a 10-game winning streak and wins in 12 of 14 overall.
It ended up being a great season despite that opening game, as the Lady Cavs made it to the Class 4A State Semifinals for the second straight year, laying the groundwork for another season of high expectations for head coach Jamie Gillies and company.
“We’re so excited,” Gillies said. “We always tell them, the best time of the year starts (the first day of practice)…three things we want to focus on heading into the season is being focused, having good communication and having high energy. I have 12 players on varsity and it’s a small number, but it’s a good number. We’ve got a lot of things we’re going to do differently.”
Several young players saw the floor for significant minutes in crucial games for Gillies, who returns a unit of sophomores in Allie Gillies, Charlie Roby and Cara Lee Gilbert. That group, along with players like Isabel Garcia, Paige Hamilton and Macy Hudson, will be relied upon to offset the loss of Jordan Gillies and Cassie Gallagher, both of whom signed to play college ball.
“Those are two big losses, but we had a great summer,” Gillies said. “Those three sophomores getting all the minutes they got last year, they’ve got a full year under them and they know what to expect from me…we get Paige Hamilton back who was out all last year, Isabel had a great summer as well.”
Gillies has always had an affinity for Garcia’s game, as she talked all last season about what her then-junior post could do to help the team win.
Now with a summer of being one of the main leaders on the team under her belt, Gillies sees no reason her senior post can’t take her game even higher.
“In our skill work, we’ve been working on mixing up her post moves and her working on her midrange game,” Gillies said. “Her passing too, she got doubled a lot this summer so we worked with her on finding that open man and kicking it out for good looks. We think she’s really going to have a big senior season.”
With all of that in mind, it’s no surprise that Gillies and her staff have high expectations to take the Lady Cavs program higher than it’s been, even in recent years. The expectation is now to make it deep into the postseason, and see if they can take that next step against other high-level programs.
“We want to win the district,” Gillies said. “We’re going to have some learning curves this year, but I’m excited…there’s going to be some times where we have to figure things out without Cassie and Jordan, but we like this group we have. We want to win the district, win the region and make it back to the state tournament.”
Cookeville Cavaliers
At times in the 2022-23 season, there were glimpses of just how good this Cookeville Cavalier team could be. One moment that stuck out was a 68-62 win over Lebanon late in the season, as well as a stretch that saw them win six of seven games early in the year.
When all was said and done, Cookeville finished third in the district with a 4-4 mark in league play and a 17-12 record overall.
Now in year five under head coach Josh Heard, he says one of the biggest differences he’s seen from this team has been the maturation process they’ve gone through since he started coaching them.
“It’s my fifth year coming into this, and these seniors and juniors have been with me the whole time,” Heard said. “I’ve been with some of them since middle school, and we always talk about growth. There’s been times where mistakes have been made and maybe they wouldn’t react the best to it, but now I’m seeing a group that’s listening and is wanting to be coached hard.”
Cookeville returns a bulk of it’s core from a year ago, headlined by Lincoln Memorial commit Josh Heard, fellow seniors Jack Oakley and Bennett Reeves, and juniors Jaren Davis and Jalen Heard. Add in a potentially healthy Colin Ayers, and there seems to be reason to have higher expectations for the Cavaliers.
Of course with everyone starting at square one, Heard knows it’ll take his players a period of time to get back in the swing of things.
“We’re not at full strength, we’ve still got some players recovering from some injuries,” Heard said. “We’ve got a bigger team this year, we’ve got 13 freshmen, so I like the changes and the way we’re going…I like that we’ve got some freshmen this year that are willing to come in and be strong for us.”
Last season, Heard said it was no longer about potential, as it was more about his players expecting greatness out of themselves and their teammates.
This year, he’s echoed that sentiment by saying he wants the team to start filling some empty spots on their plaque on the gym wall.
“We want to get to the region championship,” Heard said. “We got our new banners on the wall, and one thing I’ve told the boys is there’s a spot missing for us. The girls have it covered, and we don’t…we want to be remembered, and the only way to be remembered is to leave a mark. So we want to mark that spot on our banner this season.”