By Audrey Dodgen/Staff Writer

The El Reno High School girls basketball team finished their summer season with definite improvements, head coach Eric Carr said.

“I’m pretty pleased with the summer. Summer basketball is all about getting to play and improving,” he said.

Carr said the squad needed to work on raising the confidence of players who did not see much time on the floor last year.

“I wanted to get a little more confidence in kids who hadn’t played very many varsity minutes. I also wanted some consistency, and we showed more consistency than we had in the past,” he said.

The summer season presented two areas of transition for the team. Four seniors departed the team at the end of the last season, and assistant coach Kelly Roberts joined the team in place of Corinn Allen.

Carr said Roberts brings detailed knowledge of the fundamental elements of the game with her.

“She’s worked with some good coaches, and she’s really strong in fundamentals. That’s good, because that’s an area of our game we really need to work on. She’s going to bring a lot of experience,” he said.

With the departure of the 2006 class, the Indians lost their leading scorer, Jaclyn Rhoades.

Carr said despite the loss, he anticipates the squad playing better as a unit in the winter.

There were times we counted on Jaclyn too much. I’m hopeful some other kids will step up and take over more,” he said.

Senior Kynzi Bollinger, junior Tana Ramsey and sophomores Britney Nuzum and Kristin Horse will be expected to increase their offensive production during the 2006-2007 season.

“Kynzi is the only one of the seniors who really played a lot last year. I think she struggled some this summer, but as the summer went on, she began to understand her role and started being more consistent. I expect her to step up as a leader,” he said.

Nuzum, Horse and Ramsey all had successful summers, and Carr said he anticipates they will continue to improve.

“Kristin was a lot more aggressive offensively, which is really pleasing to see. Our guard play is going to be really solid. Tan and Britney both had really good summers. Tana probably had the best summer of anyone, and shot the ball as well as any of our guards,” he said.

The team still has a number of areas in which they must improve to remain competitive. Defense ranks high on Carr’s list of concerns.

“We’re small and we have no depth in the post. We’ll have to teach some kids to play bigger than they are. We are going to have to get better defensively in the post. If we go man, we struggle there,” he said.

The Indians will also have to work to shoot and score consistently.

“I have high expectation for this team. I believe we should win more games than we did last year,” Carr said.