2019-20 Winter Preview: Fordland Girls Basketball

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By Pat Dailey (For OzarksSportsZone.com)

In a career full of distinctions, Fordland’s Abi Southard proved to be a rarity right away by assuming the starting point guard duties for the Lady Eagles as a freshman three years ago.

While most freshman point guards staying put for the rest of their career, Southard veered on a bit of an unusual path by moving to shooting guard as a sophomore and junior. She’s come full circle as a senior this season.

“She played as a shooting guard most of the time the past two seasons and has run the point for us some,” Fordland coach Kevin McDaris said. “This year, she will take over full-time as a point guard. I don’t think she’ll have any problem with it.”

Southard has never had problems scoring. She debuted by being named to the All-O-Zone Freshman Team and has been an All-Summit League First-Team selection each of the past three years. She’s already reached the 1,500-point milestone. McDaris is hoping Southard can get to 2,000 career points before Christmas.

Southard has been exceptionally durable, having averaged 31 minutes of playing time a game during her career.

McDaris has enjoyed seeing Southard’s progress as a perimeter shooter.

“She’s very aggressive at attacking the basket and getting to the free-throw line,” he said. “Last year, her outside shot improved and over the summer she continued to improve on her shot.”

Southard may need to be an inside-outside scorer more than ever before. Fordland lost Emily Whiteford and Sophie Sparks to graduation. They joined Southard as members for the Lady Eagles’ 1,000-point club and All-Summit League First-Team choices.

Other than Whiteford and Sparks, Fordland welcomes back the majority of its players from last season’s 18-11 Class 2 District 9 runner-up squad, triggering hopes the Lady Eagles can remain a big winner.

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“We have three starters coming back and our top two players off the bench,” McDaris said.

Ready to take on increased roles are Kayleena Lucas, Mahalia Burks, Kenzie Branson and Gracie Trotter.

Expectations are for Burks’ production in particular to be on the rise.

“She can play the post and guard. She’s versatile,” McDaris said. “She averaged five points and four rebounds last year. We haven’t asked her to score a lot the last few years. We’ll have to have her score more this year.”

McDaris hopes the Lady Eagles can make a smooth transition toward being a full-fledged transition team offensively.

“We’re very small, so we’ll be more of a transition team,” McDaris said. “We’ll use our quickness and speed. We may not be as fast as we have been the last few years. It depends on the lineup we have on the floor, but we’ll try to be a transition team as much as possible.”

A staple of Fordland’s offense during McDaris’ 19-year tenure has been the 3-point shot. This bunch will follow suit in that regard.

“We will shoot a lot of 3s. Hopefully, we get a lot of offense out of that,” McDaris said.

McDaris is optimistic the winning culture at Fordland will help the Lady Eagles as they move on without Sparks and Whiteford. Fordland racked up a combined 40 wins the past two years.

“This is the first time in a while we’ve had some turnover. We lost two very good players,” McDaris said. “So, it may take little bit of time to adjust to not having Sophie and Emily out there with us. These girls want to be good. They’ve always played on good teams. I think we’ll be OK and by the end of the year have a chance to be in the running for the conference championship.”

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