by Rusty Ellis
DeKalb County Lady Tigers
The DeKalb County Lady Tigers saw their season get off to a promising start in 2022, as wins in five of their first six games potentially indicated that the team was poised to take a big step forward in year one under Brandy Alley.
Things didn’t unfold quite how the team would’ve liked however, as a 4-8 mark in district play led to a fifth-place finish and a first-round exit in the District 7-3A Tournament. Despite all of that, Alley says she saw some good things throughout the season from her group, along with some things to build on.
“I was proud of the girls for fighting through everything and battling to the end of the season really well,” Alley said. “We made a huge shift in how we do things and making a new system work…that’s something we definitely want to continue that growth in the new season.”
With year two fast approaching, Alley now faces the challenge of continuing that improvement she saw in spurts a year ago with catching new players up to speed.
“It helps that most of the girls that are going to see the floor have played in the system, but we’ve also got six brand-new players,” Alley said. “I still want to make some changes from year one to year two. I don’t want to just run the exact same things we did a year ago, we still want to tweak some things.”
Alley brings back her leading scorer and All-District player Ella Van Vranken, along with Chloe Van Vranken, Avery Agee, Tess Barton and Cam Branin. Add in Allie Melton, who transferred into the program, and young guard Katie Bechtel, and Alley believes she’s got a good portion of her rotation figured out.
“Ella’s been in the gym all summer, putting up shots,” Alley said. “Barton was our starting post last year, and she’s really added quite a bit to her offensive game…Everyone knows that Cam Branin is going to give her all every time she’s on the floor, and Chloe’s really stepped into a leadership role for us as well. From there, we’ll see what else we’ll be able to get from our younger players behind them.”
It won’t be any easier than it was a year ago, as DeKalb County was picked to finish sixth in the media poll for the district, and tied for fifth with Cumberland County in the coaches poll.
When Alley looks around the district, she knows that means that even for the teams that seem like they have a leg up on everyone else, they’ll still have to bring their best each night.
“If you don’t, there’s not going to be any cakewalks in the league,” Alley said. “Everybody’s going to be tough, and it’s all going to be about who shows up to play…it’s going to be awesome to watch and see who played who, as well as who was able to make an impact for their teams. It’s going to be an exciting district.”
Question is, what would constitute a successful season for DeKalb County? It’s a difficult question to answer right now, but Alley says she just wants her team to be in the best position possible come tournament time.
“There’s so much you have to consider,” Alley said. “For us, it’s going to be stealing some wins people don’t expect us to win, and giving everything we have out on the court.”
DeKalb County Tigers
The Tigers finished with an identical 4-8 mark in district play, along with a fifth-place finish ahead of Cumberland County and Macon County in year one under Joey Agee.
While there were moments in the season that pleased Agee, he’ll be the first one to tell you that both he and the team felt like they left some games out on the table that they could’ve won.
“I’ll be honest with you, we weren’t terribly satisfied with what we were able to accomplish,” Agee said. “We just had higher expectations for ourselves and felt like we could do more, but we learned a lot from that as players and coaches, so we’ll be better for that.”
Similar to Alley, Agee has had to do a bit of re-teaching, as he just got six players back from the football team, meaning his focus has been getting them caught up to everyone else.
“It felt like day one for us, but they’ll catch on pretty quick,” Agee said. “We’ll be able to move on and be fine.”
Conner Close is back for his senior year, along with Alex Antoniak, Ian Colwell and Caleb Spears to round out the senior class. Agee also has high expectations for juniors Jordan Parker and Dallas Kirby.
“Those two guys would’ve played a lot for us last year, but Jordan got hurt in football and Dallas was injured in the preseason,” Agee said. “Everyone’s going to be looking at Conner, and he’s done a lot of work in the gym this offseason. He’s become a real leader for us…Alex started for us some last year and got some good experience. Ian Colwell has had a really good summer for us so we’re expecting big things out of him, and then Caleb Spears is a big-bodied kid who’s going to do a lot for us in the paint.”
Agee goes on to say it’s his hope that he’ll be able to go eight or nine players deep, it’ll just depend on who steps up from his bench.
“It’s a great advantage to you if you can play a lot of kids,” Agee said. “You can do some things differently regarding pressure, and last year when we had foul trouble, we’d be in trouble just because of how short our bench was.”
It’s hard in a district like 7-3A to quantify what a good season is just because of the talent up-and-down the standings. For DeKalb County, their main goal is to get back to a place they haven’t been since 2013.
“We want to make it to the region tournament, we’ve not made it there since 2013,” Agee said. “These guys want to break that streak…we’ve got to win the games we think we should win, and then steal a few, but we’ve got to put ourselves in a good spot heading into the district tournament.”