The McDonald County girls have a new head coach in Chris Kennedy. While he is new to McDonald County, Kennedy has 25 years of coaching experience.
He is tasked with turning around a program that hasn’t finished above .500 since 2014-15 and won three games last year. The Lady Mustangs also graduated their lone all-conference selection in Meagan Mills.
Junior Ragan Wilson will be a leader after starting each of her first two seasons. She averaged 6.6 points per game last year while leading the team in assists at 2.1 per game.
Senior Samantha Frazier is a second returning starter. She was the team’s leading scorer last year with nine points per game to go with 4.1 rebounds per game.
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The rest of the lineup is open for competition.
“We will have a lot of open spots on the varsity level this year and everyday will be competitive to win those spots, which will mean the practice time will decide most of it,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy will put a premium on quickness to fill out the lineup along with focusing on better shot selection.
“We will have to get the ball up and down and get better at playing at that speed,” Kennedy said. “Our shooting percentage wasn’t good last year. That needs to get better by more reps or quality of shots.”
McDonald County opens the season Nov. 26-29 in the Carl Junction Tournament.
“We are like all schools we want to win as many game as possible and conference and district and state,” Kennedy said. “We will have a hill to climb with learning a new system and a new conference and possibly a new district, but the girls seem up to the task.”
