Published: November 04, 2008 02:11 pm      

Lady Jackets open strong

The Cleburne Lady Jackets received their first taste of live competition on Monday night in a scrimmage against Richland at Yellow Jacket Gym.

The varsity squads hit the floor first for four 10 minute quarters featuring a running clock.

“In the first scrimmage we’re still trying to get people in places, so we don’t have a lot of offensive patterns in yet,” Mitzi Marquart said. “But all that’s going to come.”

While official score wasn’t kept in the contest, Cleburne’s Secret Holmes led the Lady Jackets in scoring during the 40-minute contest with 13 points. Jasmine Boston netted six points and Jacqueline Chandler added four.

Chasity Cuffee scored three points and Becca Anderson pitched in with two.

“We’ve got two seniors and I’m looking for senior leadership,” Marquart said. “But I’ve got quite a few that can contribute with points, defense and things like that. The good thing about it is I think we’re going to be able to have a more balanced attack offensively. We expect quite a few people to step up in those areas.”

After the junior varsity teams went through a 40-minute scrimmage of their own, the varsity teams hit the floor again for a 20-minute quarter.

With several players shuffling in and out of the lineup, Cuffee led Cleburne’s scorers with eight points. Danny Carey contributed four points, while Jessie Richardson, Anderson and Chandler each netted two points.

“We’ve got a couple of freshmen that are new to our varsity,” Marquart said. “Some of these kids that played JV last year are new to our varsity. We have Chasity Cuffee who moved in. So it’s a different combination of kids playing. Some of them are playing at a higher varsity level than they’ve played at before. This was good to get the scrimmage in, to let them see the varsity speed and what the level of play is. I think we’re going to continue to get better as we go.”

Marquart said with volleyball season wrapping up last week, several of the players who also play volleyball have recently joined the basketball team.

She said it will take time for the Lady Jackets to reach the level of conditioning they will need to play the fast-paced style the coaching staff is installing.

“I knew it would look kind of rough early,” Marquart said. “They started to get a better idea and settle in. Before the first scrimmage, they’re nervous and we made quite a few turnovers early. They kind of settled in and played a little better over the last part of it.

“We don’t have a lot of stuff in. We haven’t had a lot of time to work on things. I expect it to be ugly early, but I expect it to get better and better as we go.”

Cleburne hosts Boswell at 4:30 p.m. Friday for the Lady Jackets’ second scrimmage.

The Lady Jackets open the season against Granbury at Yellow Jacket Gym on Nov. 11.

“I expect us to improve, even by Friday,” Marquart said. “We’re going to have more of our offensive patterns in and we’ll actually have a chance to walk through our defensive presses. We’ll talk about defense a little bit more. Things like rebounding positioning — some of the basics that we haven’t had time to really stop and talk about. It will give us some time to get some things in to work on in the scrimmage. We’ll be able to take time to break things down and we’ll definitely look better on Friday.”