Following last year’s 14-8 season, the girls basketball team is going into the season with a younger roster with only six returning members, four of whom have varsity experience. 

 “We are building from the ground up; we only have six returning members and none of us are seniors,” sophomore shooting guard Sinclair Richman said. “We’re a very young team. We have a lot of freshmen that are ready to put the work in and get better. We’re just learning how to play with each other.”

Because of the young team, underclassmen have had to take bigger roles than what would normally be expected of them. 

“They’re going to have to step up and take big roles early in their career,” head coach Martravious Little said. “They aren’t going to get the opportunity to have time to mature and now they actually have to step into big time roles as sophomores and freshmen.”

Since Richman is one of the only returning members, she has had to quickly move into a leadership role on the team.

“I’m one of the only returning members that’s been able to go to the conditionings; so, I’m one of the oldest at almost every single conditioning, even though I’m only a sophomore,” Richman said. “I’ve had to step up into that leadership position as it’s a hard transition from middle school to high school. I’m trying to make that easier for them.”

Little believes a young team lets the players mature quicker as they progress through high school basketball.

“Their progress now is only building into the future,” Little said. “Now, the mistakes that they make will only get better, and I expect  them to reach maximum potential because they are getting so much exposure.” 

With a large group of freshmen and incoming eighth graders from Howard Middle School, Little believes the program will continue to expand through the years.

“They are a young team, and I have been talking with Howard and another young group is coming in behind them,” Little said. “So, this is going to be amazing to watch how big the girls basketball team is going to get.”

Little is stepping into his first year coaching at Midtown and his first year coaching girls’ basketball. He hopes to teach the girls important lessons, like playing hard for the entirety of games.

“We just want to work hard and show up everyday to know that we left it all on the court, which will be the key to success,” Little said. “The most important value right now is going hard on every possession. I want them to understand that every second counts.”

Although the team is young, the players  are fast. Richman and freshman guard Devin Bockman are confident that this year will be good because of their strengths.

“I think that our team is going to perform well this year,” Bockman said. “We have a lot of young players, but we have a really good shot;our team is really fast, and our offense is pretty strong.”

The team has been conditioning and working hard since early September to get endurance to last through whole games.

“We’re going to be able to compete in a lot of games because we’ve been training pretty hard, and we’ve been doing a lot of conditioning,” Richman said. “We’ve been putting in a lot of work, and I think it will pay off during the season.”

Little agrees the frequent conditioning will help the team, and they will look to use the players’ quickness and endurance.

“Our strength is definitely going to be our quickness,” Little said. “We plan to use it [to] our advantage. A lot of teams won’t be able to run the floor as much with us.”