BY WENDI REARDON PRICE
Clarkston News Sports Writer
Wolves jump into the girls basketball season with their first pair of games this week.
They opened with a non-conference game against Birmingham Marian on Monday.
“Marian is consistently good,” said Aaron Goodnough, head coach for Clarkston Girls Varsity Basketball. “It will be a good game. It will give us a good idea of what we need to work on.
“My girls were a little upset with me when they saw our non-conference schedule to start the season. I did it on purpose,” Goodnough said. “I front loaded it to start the season. Walled Lake Central was a good team last year. We play Grand Blanc, Lakeland and Oxford all before Christmas. Then, our first game back after Christmas is West Bloomfield. We start out with a tough non-conference, then jump right into the league and right into the heart of it.”
Goodnough heads the varsity team for the first time after coaching the JV team as well as coaching seventh grade during COVID.
“I got to know some of the younger girls as well which was very helpful. I have been able to stay in touch with those girls,” he said. “The girls who have been through the program, I have coached them in travel ball.”
With the new role, he brings a new vision for the program.
“We have to play defense first then the offense will come,” he explained. “We are starting from scratch, but we are starting from scratch in the way we want to teach defense. It’s going to be interesting. I am seeing glimmers of hope. It does take time when teaching positioning and all new concepts of where we want them. It’s tough when they have never done it.
Goodnough added he is excited to take on the opportunity.
“I have high hopes for the team we have and for the girls we have coming through the program,” he said. “Now that I have been able to see the younger girls, I can see there is some promising young girls coming in. At the same time there’s a lot of programs around Oakland County really struggling, and we aren’t having issues with our numbers. It is also very promising as well. Of the 23 teams in the OAA, only nine of them ended up having freshman teams which is not great. We’re not going to have that issue for many years.”
He added he enjoys the players also compete in different sports with some in track and field in the spring and cross country and swimming in the fall.
“I fully encourage it,” he said. “In basketball we always have multiple sports kids, we just do.”
His assistant coaches include Hannah Hawes, who was assistant coach for varsity last year, and Kyle Hawes, who was assistant coach for JV.
“We have an amazing coaching staff,” he added. “I also brought in Scott Woodhull who coached at Waterford Kettering for 20-plus years. He’s just doing this to help and he has been a tremendous help.”
Goodnough added he was explaining to Woodhull what he wanted to do with defense. Woodhull said it’s what he did with his team for 20-plus years.
The team graduated three players last year and have four seniors coming up to lead the team.
“We are young,” Goodnough added.
They was scheduled to host Walled Lake Central on Thursday, Dec. 2 – ALL EVENTS FOR THE DAY WERE CANCELLED. The Wolves head to Grand Blanc on Thursday, December 9 and head to White Lake Lakeland on Saturday, December 11.