No matter what happens in their basketball careers from here on out, the members of this year’s Lady Tigers junior varsity team will always have one perfect memory. They finished the 2017-18 season unbeaten, with 23 wins and no losses. Coach Tori Mooneyham says this year, as with most seasons, it’s been fun to watch the improvement that takes place from the start of the season to the end.
“It’s very rewarding, because when you get these girls, there’s a lot to learn. Usually, for a lot of them it’s a whole new level,” Mooneyham says.
The JV Lady Tigers have gone undefeated in four previous seasons, and Mooneyham says it took several games before this year’s team began to believe it might be possible again.
“We got about halfway through the year and I think they realized, ‘Hey, we can do this.’ And so at that point, they set their minds to it and did it,” Mooneyham says. “That’s really rewarding as a coach, to see girls set a goal and work hard to achieve it.”
Republic’s defensive quickness was a standout trait of this year’s team. Mooneyham says the Lady Tigers got even better once they realized the potential of their defense to cause havoc for an opponent.
“Their defense and their presses … would give most varsity fits. One thing we really focused on is taking the short pass away. And I think early in the year, they just guarded their man when they had the ball,” Mooneyham says. “We worked on disrupting an offense and using that speed and taking that first pass away. And once they learned how to do that, there weren’t very many teams that could handle their defense.”
Members of this year’s JV Lady Tigers team were Megan Weis, Jazzy Kirby, Carle Ward, Kaitlyn Ragsdale, Clara Fronabarger, Delaney Smith, Elaina Chapman, Jade Kirby, Whitney Weaver, Shealyn Barrett, Reanna Anderson, and Savana Powell-Goodman.
