The Garden City Telegram
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Ripple positive Lady Busters will be better
Published 10/17/2007 in Sports : GCCC By Mike Kessinger
WICHITA -- Garden City Community College women's basketball coach Jake Ripple will guarantee one thing about his team.
"The one absolute about this year's team is that we are going to be better than we were last year," Ripple said speaking at the Jayhawk Conference media day Monday at the Airport Best Western.
There isn't much room to be any worse than what last year's 1-28 finish would suggest, and Ripple is certain it won't be. Take a look at the Lady Broncbusters roster and its not hard to see why. The most telling reason may just in the numbers. As in the fact the Lady Busters will have depth, unlike last year when the roster stayed consistently small. After seeing his team in action against other squads this year, Ripple is even more certain that things are looking better than last season.
Sunday the Lady Busters scrimmaged against Northern Oklahoma and Independence in Wichita. The Lady Pirates are picked second in the preseason rankings of the East Division in the Jayhawk
Conference.
"We really played well against them for a half," Ripple said of Garden City's scrimmage with Independence. "They outscored us by three in the first half, then in the second half I don't know if we ran out of gas, but I thought we lost some of our mental focus and they ended up getting us pretty good in the second half. Overall, I was really happy with the way our kids played."
The Lady Busters will be limited experience-wise as only guards Whitnie Young and LaTaish Brown return from last season. While Ripple will look to those two for leadership, the second-year Lady Busters coach feels even better to have a Holcomb duo freshmen Trista Schmitt and Katie Novack. Schmidt redshirted last season with a knee injury.
"The two kids from Holcomb are really shooting the ball well for us," Ripple said. "It's amazing, Trista's such a competitor. She's such a hard worker. She really gets after it. I think that year away has really put things in perspective for her," Ripple added.
Along with what he has seen from Schmitt and Novack, Ripple points to Sta'Nisha Garlington and 5-foot-11 Amelia Jones as players that have progressed well.
Ripple may be far from the only person to believe things will be better for Garden City. The Lady Busters were picked eighth in the West Division, a spot ahead of Dodge City Community College.
After the Lady Busters get in one more scrimmage on Oct. 29 against Sterling College, they will open the regular season in the Seward County Classic in Liberal against Carl Albert.
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