Preparation is key for Chiles’ girls’ basketball team

By Chaninn Ragland
Outlook Writer

For the past few seasons, The Lady Timberwolves have come close to reaching their goal to make it to district play. Losing to Lincoln and Leon in district play last season, the Lady Timberwolves are looking forward to turning it around this season.

 
Second-year Head Coach Scott Upchurch said the goal for his team is simply to win a lot of games.
Upchurch believes to achieve that goal it starts with ‘preparation’

 
“If you don’t prepare properly you are going to go out there and think you can actually be successful with poor planning or poor preparation,” said Upchurch. “So we prep really hard to be successful.”

 
The Wolves are young, but the upperclassmen on the team have been playing together since their freshman year, when they were runner up in district.

 
This season two new additions to the team Coach Upchurch believes would have an immediate impact and help the team to reach their goals this season are freshmen Aly Freeland and Mickela Helms.

 
Upchurch said that freshman Aly Freeland is “very gifted”

 
“She plays the center position for us,” he said. “She rebounds, she tall and plays very physical.”

 
It didn’t take long for freshman Mickela Helms to grasp the level of varsity basketball play. Upchurch said she already displays good work ethic.
“She’s very active, spending four hours playing basketball every day,” he said. “Two hours’ practice and two hours on her own.”

 
Both freshmen would be led by the team’s three junior captains, Maleri Mills, Allee Auringer and Kamryn Canova.

 
“All three players bring something different to the team,” said Upchurch. “As a unit I think they are much better.”

 
“All their traits are like the Voltron thing, so when they actually combine all their power and energy they turn into something really good. They all been playing varsity basketball since their freshman year, so they understand want it takes to be successful.”

 
The players also have some big expectations for this season.

 
“We want to have more wins than losses,” said Canova. “We want to play as a unit and build together because we are really young.”
Despite being a young team that will have growing pains, they are intent to stick together.

 
“We are a group of girls that love each other,” said Auringer. “I know when we meet the potential that we have, we are going to be special.”
Upchurch believes the most unique thing about this team is their competitiveness.

 
“They are competitive,” he said . “They all want to compete to be successful. They push each other every day. They have that competitive fire.”