VALDOSTA — Football season at Valdosta State is over, but Blazer fans don’t need to wait to get their VSU athletics fix.
Basketball season is finally here.
The Lady Blazers tip-off their season today against Lander at 2 p.m. in The Complex.
The Lady Blazers appear to be poised for another good season. The team was picked to win the Gulf South Conference Eastern Division for the fifth time in six years. Head coach Kiley Hill’s unit returns 10 players, including four starters, from a team that went 21-9 last year and advanced to the NCAA tournament.
“If we can stay healthy, we can be a pretty good basketball team,” Hill said. “But even with 10 returning kids, you have to look at our overall roster and our guard depth.”
Two key returnees for the Lady Blazers are point guard Leschelle Matthews and guard Michelle Thompson. Matthews has been selected to the preseason All-GSC first team.
“I don’t think too much of it,” Matthews said. “I think I still have to prove why I was picked.”
Thompson led the Lady Blazers in points last year, averaging 11.8 per game. She also set a VSU record by making 90 percent of her free throws.
After Thompson and Matthews, the Lady Blazers are still very young, despite returning 10 players. Returnees Sczeny Hartry, Lauren Maples, Megan Czerepinski, Amanda Haven and Courtney Mitchell are sophomores. Shakeda Richie is a junior, but she didn’t play her freshman year at Mercer. Logan Petry and Alli Jones are freshmen.
“We have 10 kids returning, but the standpoint with that is (we) don’t have experienced depth,” Hill said. “We’re a work in progress. Once those kids mature a little bit more, and if we stay healthy, we’re going to get better, better and better. We can struggle early, because of that depth standpoint of experience, but I think once we figure things out in January and February, we can be a very competitive basketball team.”
The Lady Blazers’ defense has always been good under Hill. Last season, the team was second in the GSC, giving up just 52.2 points per game. However, the offense was dead last in scoring in the conference. In the offseason, Sierra Nixon transferred to VSU from Louisiana Tech. The 6-foot-2 power forward adds a much-needed offensive threat in the post. Nixon scored a team-high 12 points in an exhibition against Florida State earlier in the month.
The Lady Blazers also added 6-foot-1 power forward Brittany Daniels from East Tennessee State.
“I think our biggest focus was to shore up some needs in the post area,” Hill said. “That’s one of the reasons we didn’t score a lot of points. We didn’t have an inside game whatsoever. We were so perimeter-oriented, and when we didn’t knock it down from the perimeter, we didn’t get high-percentage shots in the post area. Guard play will always get you to the tournament, post play will win it. You have to have that dominant post player, and you have to have post depth to play inside-out basketball.”
Nixon’s offense will be needed, but she said she wants to fit in with the defensive mindset of the rest of the team. She said she’s concentrating on getting a red heart, a sticker that’s put on a player’s locker when she draws a charge.
“I’m working on it,” Nixon said.
While most good teams usually play cupcake opponents in their season openers, the Lady Blazers face a Lander team that made it to the national tournament last year.
Lander, which plays in the Peach Belt Conference, is one of just several difficult games on the Lady Blazers’ schedule. The Lady Blazers play Clark Atlanta twice and Tampa. Both teams were NCAA tournament teams.
“I really wish I could find the guy who did our scheduling, and I would take him out in the parking lot, and rough him up a little bit,” Hill said.
Of course, the man who made the Lady Blazers’ schedule is Hill. VSU’s strength of schedule nearly cost the Lady Blazers their national tournament berth last year. Except for VSU and West Georgia, every team in the GSC East finished under .500, making the Lady Blazers’ schedule weak.
That won’t be the case this year. Along with playing Clark Atlanta, Tampa, Lander and West Georgia, the Lady Blazers host Delta State on Dec. 15 in the GSC crossover. The Lady Statesmen have advanced to the Final Four two years in a row.
Delta State has been the thorn in the Lady Blazers’ side for the last two years. The Lady Statesmen have eliminated VSU from the GSC tournament and the national tournament two years in a row.
This year, the Lady Blazers get a chance for revenge in their home gym.
“That’s a game we look forward to,” Hill said. “That’s who we measure our program against right now, because that’s the team that’s knocked us out of the GSC tournament and the national tournament. With this crossover situation, with them coming in and playing us, it’s a great tool for us to measure where we are at early. Hopefully we can compete at a very high level in front of our home crowd.”
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