Star Valley Lady Braves Basketball Coach Kade Erickson called into First Bank of Wyoming Sports Friday to discuss the upcoming season for Lady Braves basketball.

(0:00) Duke and Dow with you in studio this morning, heading in to a guest interview now with (0:05) Star Valley Lady Braves girls basketball coach Cade Erickson. Coach Erickson, good morning, (0:10) how are you doing today? Doing great, how about you guys? We are doing great, thank you for taking (0:15) a few minutes out of your day. You’re an educator, you got snow on the ground, I’m sure your kids (0:21) are going nuts, so we appreciate you taking a couple of minutes to talk basketball with us.

(0:27) Yeah, for sure. We had early morning practice and so the girls had to drive on these roads, (0:33) so it always makes you a little nervous as a coach as we do early mornings like that, (0:37) but everybody got there safe and that’s the main thing. You know, coach, I actually wanted (0:41) to ask you that question.

What is the practice schedule like early on in the season before you (0:49) even play a game? You had the tryouts and you get your team solidified. It’s not just a two-hour (0:54) after school thing, is it? No, it never stops is what it seems like, but we have our tryouts (1:02) Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday right before Thanksgiving and then the girls have a little (1:07) break and then once we get back we hit it hard. So most of the time we do go after school, (1:13) but there’s times that we go in the morning just because of the overload of all the kids and the (1:19) girls wrestling and the boys wrestling, so we all have to take turns going in the morning.

But (1:23) we went this morning just to be honest more or less to kind of give the girls a break to (1:28) get away after school, get rested up. You know, we get going, they’re not in very good shape and so (1:35) it was good for us to go this morning and hopefully get rested up to the weekend because (1:39) the next two weeks we don’t have any breaks besides Sunday and so it’s a lot for the girls. (1:45) Coach Erickson, is this your seventh year or eighth year as the head coach? (1:50) It is the start of my seventh year.

I can’t believe it. It seems like we were (1:55) just talking a while back that I was just beginning, so it is flying by. (1:59) Well, let’s talk about your program to this point.

You’ve had some successes and obviously (2:07) kind of an annual trip to the state tournament every year and doing that is obviously some of (2:13) your annual goals, but talk to us about some of your girls that are coming back this year and (2:18) some of those goals over the course of this upcoming program, upcoming season. (2:22) Oh yeah, for sure. So, we’re pretty fortunate.

We have three of our starters that started last (2:28) year coming back this year with Ambry who’s been playing at the point for, she started about (2:34) halfway through her sophomore year, so we got a lot of experience there and then Cam Mackey came (2:40) in and started and she’s back and then we have Ruby Hill who started for us on the inside last (2:45) year coming back. So, those three coming back with the experience just as much as anything is (2:51) so important. They know the intensity and what it feels like to play at those higher level games, (2:56) but I feel great with the rest that are coming back.

We have Hudson Hill who has played great (3:03) JV last year coming back playing for us. Liv Kleeman who gave us solid minutes last year will (3:10) be coming back and helping on the inside too and then we have Morgan McGee and Avery England who (3:17) came in and were big addition for us as we ended last year and as we went into regionals and state (3:24) and then we have Kira Allred who will come be coming in giving us some minutes and (3:29) then we’ll kind of see after that as far as, you know, which sophomores and younger girls are (3:35) going to be able to step up and contribute and sometimes we don’t know that till about mid-season. (3:40) Avery England right now injured herself at the end of volleyball as you guys know.

She did get (3:47) that taken care of and so we’re hoping, we’re crossing our fingers that she’ll be back the (3:52) first of January. So, we’ll just kind of have to play it week by week with her, but she’s able to (3:57) come to practice at least and do some light jogging. So, I feel great about the girls that (4:04) were coming back.

You know, those who didn’t have a ton of experience are playing well and stepping (4:08) up and playing well with the older girls and so we’ve had, I feel, great practices with lots of (4:16) energy and I feel that they’ve been very productive. So, as far as our goals, Dal, you know, (4:23) I asked the seniors their goals and as we met the other night and their biggest thing is just (4:29) building a program, but one thing that really stuck out is playing two on Saturday is what (4:34) we call it and that’s when we get to state is playing on Saturday, is getting past that (4:40) Thursday, Friday, what’s been has been kind of where we’ve ended and we want to get past that (4:45) day and play on Saturday. So, we sometimes just bring that up as far as motivation of just saying (4:52) playing on Saturday and all the girls know what it means and that’s what our goal is this year.

(4:56) Let’s talk about Lady Braves girls basketball coach Kate Erickson this morning with us on First (5:00) Bank of Wyoming Sports Friday. Coaches, you’re going through name by name all those girls (5:05) returning. I was actually looking at last year’s roster and you graduated four really good seniors (5:10) last year, but you mentioned it and I’m guessing it wasn’t just coach speak here when you said (5:19) that you’re really excited about the girls coming back because you have a ton of talent returning (5:23) this year and when you talk about that two games on Saturday and what you guys want to be at the (5:27) end of the year, I think you’ve probably got a pretty good gauge right now of who this team (5:33) could potentially be and so when you compare the last now six seasons of coaching Lady Braves (5:39) basketball, you kind of have that gauge of where you need to be early December and what you need (5:44) to work towards and so how do you feel about your team right now at this moment or what are some (5:48) things you need to work on to be ready for that two on Saturday at the end of the year? (5:53) Yeah, no that that’s a good point to look at and you always kind of look at each year of where (5:57) you’re at and where you need to work on things and it’s actually been kind of interesting as (6:02) I set up practice plans and get ready.

We’ve been able to add a handful of new things without (6:08) reviewing some old things and there’s a lot of times at the very beginning of the year that (6:12) you know girls just forget and you just have to refresh it and fine-tune it and we still need to (6:17) do that but actually the last two or three days we’ve been working on a couple new zone offenses (6:23) and then some inbound play and a couple quick hitters and so I just feel that that experience (6:31) at the head of the at the start of the year is there already and if we can just keep getting (6:35) better and better each week, I’m excited to see what these girls can do and so it’ll be interesting (6:43) and I always people ask me well how’s the season going to go on and I usually tell them ask me in (6:48) a month and I you just never know just because of the the teams that we’re playing and just (6:55) knock on wood injuries have kind of hurt us the last couple of years. We had Delancey Brogue (7:00) the very first of the year two years ago and then we had Austin Bagley last year and it just changes (7:05) the dynamics but if we can stay healthy and get Avery back and then just get a few of those younger (7:10) girls to step up and help us, I think we should be a pretty solid team. Your mentality of your (7:19) program has been very defensive-minded I think is one way that you could describe that.

A girl (7:26) that graduated last year, Emily Dana, of course playing collegiately. She’s your main scorer last (7:31) year. Do you feel like this year’s crew is going to be maybe more of replacing those points as a (7:36) committee or do you feel like from what you’ve seen over the summer and and so far in practice (7:42) maybe just increased point totals for these girls that are each coming back? Yeah I think it’s going (7:49) to be as a group now.

You know as we’ve been practicing and scrimmaging it might be (7:55) Amber who can take it to the rim or we might be able to kick it out and get a few shots from Hudson (7:59) Kleeman from the outside and even Liv and Ruby’s been shooting a lot more from the outside and (8:03) more with confidence just because of their age and they they feel that they can take that shot (8:08) because they’re the leader on the team and so as far as the summer ball went we have a round of (8:16) you know as far as scoring it kind of changed around a little bit and one girl I feel bad I (8:21) totally forgot to mention we got a new girl coming in Ari Foster. She played up in Dubois (8:27) 1A for quite a while and now she moved down here and she’s going to be a big contribution for us (8:33) too and so she averaged 12-13 points a game in 1A and I know it’s a lot different but no she’ll be (8:41) big and we still are. We hit it and I think the girls kind of get sick of it but we are defensive (8:46) minded coaching staff and a defensive minded team but also we’ve been I feel the last few years (8:52) we’ve been trying to focus more on the offensive part and being more productive that way so we can (8:57) compete at the 4A.

Well coach let’s talk your first games of the season to get in action (9:02) next week at Evanston and then of course you have the the traditional Flaming Gorge and (9:07) Green River. What are you hoping to see from your girls next week and then the week after that when (9:11) you get through these first couple of games of competition? I think the biggest thing as a coach (9:16) is just kind of seeing how well the girls play together. You know as we get going and girls can (9:23) trust each other and they can trust us as coaches what we’re going to do that is huge so the biggest (9:30) thing we’re going to look for is is making sure that the girls can play together and then we can (9:37) make our adjustments after that because it it does you know we get going and rolling and we may (9:44) make changes here and there and I feel that we have eight to nine girls that can give us good (9:48) solid minutes and so hopefully that’s how it works out and so we have some pretty good games going (9:55) into Evanston.

We get to play Rock Springs and Green River and then we have a tough game against (10:01) East so I’m excited about those first three games and we’ll build a hopefully come back through that (10:07) weekend learn what we need to work on. I’m sure it’ll show us our weaknesses and then we can work (10:13) on the next week and just continue to get on get better with them as we move on into conference. (10:17) Lady Braves basketball coach Kate Erickson this morning it’s all part of First Bank of Wyoming (10:21) Sports Friday.

Coach thank you for your time wish you guys the very best of luck and we’ll see you (10:25) on the court. I appreciate thank you guys. It’s Swift 98 and the Spur with First Bank of Wyoming (10:31) Sports Friday.