Hillcrest girls basketball team building for the future

Raven freshmen and sophomores eager to improve

By Jeff Yoder
Posted 11/19/22

It might take more than one season for Ravens’ girls basketball rebuild to yield results in the win column. But with the youngest and most inexperienced roster in the Southeast Iowa Super …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Hillcrest girls basketball team building for the future

Raven freshmen and sophomores eager to improve

Posted

It might take more than one season for Ravens’ girls basketball rebuild to yield results in the win column. But with the youngest and most inexperienced roster in the Southeast Iowa Super Conference, Hillcrest Academy coach Mitchell Drey is looking at things from a long-term perspective. 

“I hate losing, I really do,” Drey said. “I hated it last year, but we had to take those lumps to make sure our sophomores were ready this year. Now it just comes down to doing that same thing this year. I hate losing. But we're going to be young, so we're going to make some mistakes like we did tonight.”

The Ravens, who lost four starters from last year’s 1-19 squad, opened the 2022-23 season with a 45-30 loss at Tri-County on Friday.  

All 30 points were scored by sophomores and freshmen. The Ravens have just one junior and no seniors on the roster. 

“We're not quite there yet,” Drey said. “What makes me happy is, we’ve got two more years to grow. Where some other teams might lose some of their girls next year or the year after that, we get to keep ours for two more.”

Raven sophomore Malia Yoder led the team with 13 points on Friday. She converted a 4-point play and made another 3-pointer during a 9-0 run in the second quarter. Her seven-point spurt was followed by free throws made by Delaney Shaw and Lydia Beachy that cut the Tri-County lead to 17-16.

“Malia did a great job, I knew that she could do this,” Drey said. She showed that she was capable last year a couple of times.” 

Yoder is the only returning starter from a season ago. She scored over six points per game and led the Ravens with 35 assists for the season. Despite being just a sophomore, she takes a leadership role on the court. 

“Since we're so young, people aren't really expecting us to do much but I'm excited to prove them wrong,” Yoder said. 

She said that the team has shown improvement already through the early season practices. 

“All the freshmen have definitely improved so much and our communication has been much better,” she said. 

Freshman Claire Withrow scored eight of her 11 points after halftime on Friday and sophomore Kylee Statler scored all four of her points from the free throw line. 

Beachy, a sophomore, was typically the first Raven to come off the bench last year. She grabbed 51 rebounds and led the team with four blocked shots last season. 

While Beachy made just her second career start on Friday, she’s one of the more experienced players in the Hillcrest lineup. 

“I think we have a lot of potential,” Beachy said. “It’s going to be an interesting year. But I think we have the skills to get better. And we have a couple more years together to go even further.”

Hillcrest fell behind 17-7 on Friday before Yoder drew a foul on her first made 3-pointer. 

She cashed in from outside for the third time to cut the lead to 21-19 early in the second half, but the Trojans responded with a 13-2 run. 

Tri-County had just two made field goals in the second quarter, but made seven in the third quarter as Raven turnovers led to easy scores in transition. 

Drey said that his team also allowed too many offensive rebounds during the third quarter. 

“We knew coming in that we’re an undersized team, so rebounding is huge,” he explained. “But the good thing is it's fixable, we can fix those two things as long as we put the effort in.”

And the effort is there. According to Drey, his team’s biggest strength is “how hard they go. 

“They're going all the time. I told them at the beginning of the season, we were going to run a bunch. And we did. They went through it. They didn't complain. They just put their heads down and they worked. And that's great to have in a young team. They want to work and they want to get better. So now we’ve just got to get the experience.”

Hillcrest (0-1) begins the conference slate at Columbus on Tuesday, November 22. The Ravens open the season with four straight road games before welcoming Lone Tree to Hillcrest Union on December 6.