With only six returning players, the Baker University women’s basketball team will look to newcomers to help share the workload this season.
After scrimmaging Johnson County Community College, Neosho County Community College and Fort Scott Community College Saturday, head coach Susan Decker said the team played with much more intensity compared with Tuesday’s scrimmages in Collins Center.
Decker said some of the team’s main weaknesses are the inexperience of members playing together and the lack of collegiate-level experience in the point guard position.
“We’re still getting to know how to play together and are learning each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” she said.
Senior center Amanda Yates, who is co-captain with senior guard Molly Ediger, said intensity will be a major part of the team’s success, but right now the team is focusing on getting to know each other on the court.
“If you have intensity, the rest will come,” she said. “We’re still trying to figure out how each other play.”
Despite some of the players’ inexperience, Decker said the team has a deep bench.
“We’re deep at all our spots, and we have a lot of people who can play at both the guard and the post positions,” she said.
Sophomore guard Hannah Eagleman, a transfer from Southwest Baptist University, said most of the players are equally talented.
“Our strength is that we’re a very unselfish team,” she said. “Almost anyone on the floor is of equal caliber. We can all score, we can all play defense and we are all threats.”
As a transfer player, Eagleman said learning the plays was one of the hardest parts for her.
“I’m learning the same thing I’ve been taught before, but in a different way,” she said. “I’m learning the same aspect of the game, but it’s a different system.”
The team will play at 7:30 p.m. today against Missouri Baptist University in Collins Center and will play Kansas Wesleyan University at 2 p.m. Saturday.