Four years ago Westminster basketball coach Heather Karvis made the decision to promote four ninth graders to the varsity basketball team. She saw great potential in the group and chose to throw them into the fire rather than bring them along slowly. Today the program is reaping the benefit.
The Wildcats, with that group now seniors, have lived up to that potential. Westminster is now 17-4 and ranked No. 9 in Class AAA. Tonight they have a showdown with No. 5 Decatur, which beat them by 10 points back on Dec. 13. Westminster trails Decatur by a game in Region 4-AAA Div. B.
“We continue to improve our depth,” Karvis said. “We don’t have any superstars. We’ve got a lot of really disciplined, hard-working girls. They’ve improved their discipline, they’ve improved their ball movement and their getting stronger finishing around the basket.”
Karvis knows a thing or two about being tough around the basket. She played at Parkview High School and started for four seasons at Oglethorpe University. She earned a reputation as a hard worker who was always willing to go after the tough rebound or take the tough shot.
It wasn’t easy to promote four seniors, but Karvis didn’t back away from her intuition. Today the quartet of Conoly Cravens, Christina Lopez, Andi Carrandi and Jazmine Lester is the backbone of the team. Carrandi has signed with Washington and Lee University.
“Each one of them is a hard worker and I know it’s been a huge difference maker for us,” Karvis said. “It’s taken them four years to get to this place.”
There are other contributors, too. Junior Hannah Morgan, a 5-foot-11 wing, is averaging 18 points and shooting 40 percent on her 3-point attempts. There are two outstanding post players: Maya Longacre, a 6-foot sophomore, averages nine points and six rebounds, and Grace Staes, a 5-11 freshman, averages nine rebounds.
“We have a lot of pieces that are interchangeable,” Karvis said.
On Tuesday night Westminster will put an 11-game winning streak and undefeated home record on the line when it hosts Decatur (19-2).
“We’ll see what we can do,” Karvis said. “We’re so inexperienced at this I’m not sure how they’ll respond. So far I’ve been pleased with the focus they’ve shown. Two years ago we would have panicked before we took the court.”
In other games scheduled Tuesday night:
Girls
Dodge County (15-4) travels to Pierce County (9-7) and could virtually wrap up Region 1-AAA Div. A with a win. The Indians are two games ahead of Pierce in the subregion and have won four straight since center Rachel Selph returned to the lineup from an injury. Selph had 21 points against West Laurens on Saturday.
In Region 1-AAA Div. B, first place will be on the line when No. 6 Beach (16-5) travels to Johnson (14-5). Beach has a one-game lead over the Atom Smashers in the subregion standings. Johnson features 6-foot-5 Ijeoma Odimgbe, who averages 12.9 points and 12.2 rebounds. Beach is led by Jacqueline Anderson, a 5-8 guard who averages 17.6 points, 2.5 assists, 2.9 rebounds and 3.6 steals.
Boys
The Calhoun boys lead Region 7-AAA but the Yellow Jackets won’t have an easy path to the region tournament. In fact, they won’t have an off date between now and the end of the year. Coach Vince Layson’s team (13-3, 10-0) have six games over the next two weeks, starting tonight at Adairsville. Most pressing are games on Saturday against Ringgold and on Feb. 2 at North Murray. Calhoun has a strong corps of players led by juniors Kaelan Riley (15.2 points, 9.2 rebounds) and Jireh Wilson (13.5 points, 4.9 rebounds) and sophomore Chapin Rierson (11.7 points, 5.9 rebounds).
