Lady Rangers Working Hard To Get Off To Fast Start

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After their best player from a year ago, Lea Smith graduated, their upcoming star Laney Rumancik got hurt for the year, and another strong talent transferred, it would have been easy for Coach Amy Esser and her squad to throw in the towel.  They have done anything but, and it is clear through this early stretch of this season that this team is on a mission.

If you recall, this is the team that upset Avon Lake last year in the playoffs.  Daylan Baker who hit the game winning three is back and has taken on a leadership role.  It has worked as the Rangers are 3-1 with victories over Vermillion 40-27, 64-40 over Amherst and 41-34 against Avon Lake.

Daylan Baker went for 17 points in the victory over Amherst, including 6 points from beyond the arc.  Grace Kingery also put up 16 against the Comets. Also putting up 10 was Kat Crevda while Reilly Elbert had 8.

They stayed hot yesterday as they improved their record to 3-1 with a 41-34 victory versus Avon Lake.  It was Daylan Baker going off again with 17 including 6 from deep, and 9 from the charity stripe. Kingery was graceful again as she put in 11 points including a three ball.

Holding a good scoring team like Avon Lake to 34 is also no easy task.  Not only did they hold the Shoregals to just 34 total points, but not a single player in the Gold and Maroon scored in the double digits.

I spoke with Coach Esser about how they handled the COVID 19 break after just one game this season, “We decided to take it one step further and didn’t even scrimmage at practice.  Rather we focused on ball skills and drills. 

We figured if even one kid got sick it wasn’t worth it so we kept it as safe as possible at practice.  We didn’t even scrimmage and hadn’t played any five on five until our game Monday night against Berea-Midpark.”

After suffering a tough loss against the Titans, they have bounced back with two impressive wins over Amherst and Avon Lake.  Coach Esser explained how they bounced back and what is leading to the early success, “They key to our improvement has been our defense.  We’ve really been pressuring the guards and giving them pressure for four quarters.  It has helped playing 3 games in a week, with a fourth coming tomorrow.  The girls are excited to be back on the court and that has helped. It’s helping with conditioning and we just want to play.”

The Rangers will be back in action tomorrow night at Midview before returning back home Wednesday night to host Valley Forge.