After four straight trips to the district championship game, Crittenden County failed to advance past the semifinals in 2018-19. However, veteran coach Shannon Hodge feels like she has the right parts to compete for a district title and get back to the region tournament.
Hodge, who enters her 27th season at the helm of the Lady Rockets, has been forced to play a younger lineup in recent years that often featured a middle school player or two. This year, she has 14 high schoolers on her roster with half of those juniors.
The Lady Rockets return five of their top six scorers from last year’s 14-14 squad. Taylor Guess averaged 10.6 points as an eighth grader and earned All-District honors. She tied for the team lead in 3-pointers made on a team that didn’t shoot the ball well from the outside.
Junior Nahla Woodward joined Guess in double-figure scoring at 10.4 points a game and led the team with eight rebounds a game.
Hodge has several players coming back that gained valuable experience last year. Junior Jaelyn Duncan (5.6 ppg., 4.9 rpg.) and freshman Natalie Boone (4.4 ppg., 3.0 rpg.) should be mainstays in a lineup that also welcomes back Chandler Moss who played in four games last year before suffering a season-ending injury. She averaged four points and five rebounds as a freshman.
Hodge has a deeper than normal bench that will allow her to go with size or speed depending on the flow of the game. How quickly the bench develops will determine their success by the time the All-A regional tournament rolls around in January.
