By Ryan Davenport, WSON Sports Correspondent
The Henderson County Lady Colonel basketball team is looking to have success this season with few returning players and lots of new young potential talent.
The Lady Colonels went 28-5 a season ago, going 11-0 in the 2nd region and 5-0 in the 6th district, as the Lady Colonels won in the 6th District Tournament Championship game by taking down the Webster County Lady Trojans 61-36. The Lady Colonels would face the Crittenden County Lady Rockets in the 2nd Region Championship game and defeated them 71-53 to advance to the KHSAA Girls Sweet 16 State Tournament. Then in the opening round of the State Tournament, the Lady Colonels defeated the Simon Kenton Lady Pioneers, 56-54 in double overtime at Rupp Arena. Then in the quarterfinals, the Lady Colonels took down Louisville Mercy 63-59 to advance to the Final Four. The Lady Colonels would suffer a 57-40 loss against the McCracken County Lady Mustangs that ended their season.
I was able to sit down and interview the new Head Coach of the Lady Colonels Stephen Haile and ask him a few questions about this Lady Colonel 2023-2024 team. When asked what about following in his dads footsteps and taking over as the next Lady Colonel, Head Coach,Stephen responded with this, “It means a lot. You know it’s something that I’ve thought about for years since I helped him as assistant coach and JV coach and I left for two years to coach at Daviess County and things just ended up working out and when he retired I had the opportunity. Like I said, it’s something I’ve thought about for a long time. Very excited about being back coaching at Henderson County and leading this team.”
When asked what his team has done in the offseason to improve coming into season, Haile responded with this, “When I first took over in May, one of the main things I thought we needed to improve on is our strength. We have a young team, so we’ve been hitting the weight room three times a week since July. I think we’ve gotten a little bit stronger, I think we’ve gotten a little bit tougher, and I know we’re going to hustle and play good defense so those are things that we’ve definitely improved on I feel like since this summer.”
Coach Haile discussed some of the new coaching staff additions this season and Haile responded with this, “So Coach (Danny) Perkins is back. Long time assistant, kind of mister do it all, so he’s been here for twenty some odd years at least I can’t even remember how long he’s been here. He’s a great person to be able to retain and keep on staff. Then we picked up Coach Mary Beth Parker who coached at South Middle School the last couple of years, who previously coached at Union County as their varsity coach. She’s going to be running our JV team and helping out with varsity as needed obviously too. Derek Phillips who was the head girls coach at Union County for about five or six years there in the late 2010s and so he’s been a good addition to our staff also and helping out a lot with overall in our program JV and varsity. Then Coach Adrienne Cruse we picked her up too, another former player like Mary Beth that played for Dad and she’s been another good addition, been very happy with our coaching staff so far.”
Coach Haile talked about some of the team goals for this season, “I told the girls you know we’re starting at a certain level and it’s going to be a little bit lower than where they’ve started in practice the last few years just cause the things that we have to learn, new systems, some different things that we’re trying to do offensively and defensively but I think we’ve been catching up pretty rapidly the last week or two. Our end goals are to compete for the district, region, and state championships just like it is every year at Henderson County. We may not be the team we’re going to be in March in December and we’ve talked to the girls about that, you know we can’t get frustrated and it’s about the long game. We’re going to compete every night though I can promise you that.”
I was also able to interview Lady Colonel sophomore guard Addy Gish, in which Gish was asked what she felt like she had improved on this offseason, from last season to now, and she responded with this, ”My confidence.”
Gish was asked about team goals her team has this season and she responded with this, “Building around a team and becoming more of a team.”
Gish talked about what it means to play in a Lady Colonel uniform and the impact it has had on her as a player and in his life, “Just getting to know more people and becoming more confident.”
Another player I was able to interview was sophomore forward Brooklyn Gibson and asked her a few questions. Gibson talked about some of the improvements she made in the offseason to better her play this season, “I feel like I have improved on my outside game, definitely ball handling because last year I was more of like the power forward that would stay at the block, now I can step out and shoot and dribble and drive to the basket if I need to.”
Gibson was asked about team goals her team has this season and she responded with this, “Definitely to win the district championship and then win the region championship to go back to Rupp.”
Gibson talked about what it means to play in a Lady Colonel uniform and the impact it has had on her as a player and in his life, “Its gave me more discipline to do more.”
Another player I was able to interview was junior forward Anna Kemp and asked her a few questions. Kemp talked about some of the improvements she made in the offseason to better her play this season, “I’ve been working a lot more on my shot this year, being more of a scorer, (since) we’ve lost a lot of scorers this year. Even right now sitting out, sitting on the side though and working on getting some shots up and hopefully being able to contribute offensively as well defensively this year.”
Kemp was asked about team goals her team has this season and she responded with this, “Definitely get back to Rupp Arena. It’s a completely different look this year, we lost five key players last year and obviously Coach (Jeff) Haile. Continuing the legacy, still playing Henderson County girls basketball like we have for the last 35 plus years, so just continuing to do that and get back to what we’ve always done.”
Kemp talked about what it means to play in a Lady Colonel uniform and the impact it has had on her as a player and in his life, “I mean it’s amazing just the legacy in girls basketball, my mom’s played here, my sister played here. So getting to play with my sister and then getting to be out there myself is just a great opportunity.”
The final player I was able to interview was junior guard Allyson Rideout and asked her a few questions. Rideout talked about some of the improvements she made in the offseason to better her play this season, “What I’ve improved on I feel like is definitely my intensity on defense and offense, just really getting in there and giving my best shot and taking shots whenever I’m open.”
Rideout was asked what she might need to improve on going into the season to better help her game, “Definitely getting more rebounds, going up with confidence, I definitely need to improve on that.”
Rideout talked about what it means to play in a Lady Colonel uniform and the impact it has had on her as a player and in his life, “It definitely means a lot. This program is really disciplined, definitely has taught me more responsibility, more discipline and it’s just really impactful in my life and the team as a whole, just the community, it’s really great.”
The Lady Colonels open up the season with Hancock County tonight, November 28th, on the road at 6:00 P.M in Lewisport.
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