By Wendi Reardon Price
Clarkston News Sports Writer
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — Clarkston Girls Varsity Basketball is set to open the season this week with three games on the road.
“It looks good,” said Aaron Goodnough, head coach, going into the first week of competition. “We are young. We kept a lot of young girls. We moved them up at least practicing with us.”
He added last week was their first full week of practicing as the season officially opened the week of the Thanksgiving holiday.
“It was strange but we are in the same boat as everyone else,” he said. “We just had to squeeze a lot in a short amount of time. We are in good shape. I am trying to keep everyone healthy and really consistent with weight room as well. It’s gone well. The girls have really embraced it.”
The Wolves opened the season against Heritage on Tuesday. They head to Chelsea on Thursday and play Haslett in the Swartz Creek Showcase on Saturday.
Goodnough shared it helps to start out the season with harder teams before they go into their league games.
“They have started to embrace it,” he said. “I think it helps because then we don’t just go out and win some games. Winning a couple of games at the beginning of the year by 30, I don’t know what that does for you. We are trying to get girls to compete right out of the box and be physical. We are going to find teams who are going to challenge us right away. It gets you right into the thick of things.”
He shared with a lot of youth on the team the defense will be ahead of the offense to start off the season.
“We just have a lot to learn on offense,” Goodnough said. “We have talent. We are just trying to fit all the pieces together. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. You know the future of the program is good, but you have to figure out how to get them to contribute now. We will have to be consistent on defense and let the offense come to us.”
The Wolves will have senior Emily Valencia and Claire Walker help lead the way and will be in the starting line up.
Other starters include junior Elia Morgner, junior Marley Mazur and sophomore Elli Robak.
“I have a freshman, Brooklyn Covert, who if she doesn’t start she will at least be the first off the bench,” he said. “She has been coming to our camps for years. She will make an impact quickly. Her eyes are a little wide, but she picks everything up quickly. She makes up with what she doesn’t know with she is just crazy quick. She has a attack mentality.”
The Wolves host their home opener against Howell on Friday, December 15. JV plays at 5:30 p.m., varsity follows.

  Basketball, Girls Basketball