By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Things couldn’t have gone any better for the Chadwick girls basketball team in coaching veteran Jim Pendergrass’ first season leading the Lady Cardinals.
Chadwick won its final 18 games and earned the Class 1 state championship last season with a 44-43 victory over Northeast (Cairo). The team finished with a 28-4 record––the program’s fifth straight 20-win season.
“It was a great season, the girls really did a great job,” Pendergrass said. “They were an easy group to coach. They came in wanting to learn every day and they worked extremely hard and they were coachable. A lot of really good things happened for them and our team and our program.”
Chadwick will have to replace two starters from that team in guard Raeleigh Little (13.8 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 4.7 APG, 2.7 SPG) and post player Millie Burkhart. Little was a four-year starter who earned first team all-state and all-Mark Twain Conference honors and Burkhart was an honorable mention pick in the MTC.
“We lost one of the better players in Class 1 in Rae Little,” Pendergrass said. “At the end of the year she was as good as there was in Class 1 and she was a fantastic leader for our program with a tremendous amount of experience. She was a great all-around basketball player. Millie Burkhart hit some absolutely huge shots for us in the state championship game and she didn’t score a lot during the season but when we needed her most she really stepped up. Those are two kids with a lot of experience, a lot of games played.”
Pendergrass (360-109 in 16 years and the Class 1 Coach of the Year) will have three returning starters this winter who each earned postseason honors last year: senior Ella Herd and juniors Emily Landry and Macy Landry. Herd was a second-team pick in the MTC, while Emily Landry earned all-state honors and was a first-team selection in the MTC and Macy Landry was a first team all-conference performer.
Herd averaged 6.5 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game, Emily Landry scored 13.1 with 3.8 rebounds, 2.3 steals and 1.9 assists, and Macy Landry averaged 9 points, 4.2 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.6 steals.
“Ella Herd plays inside for us and is a very aggressive, hard-nosed, tough player,” Pendergrass said. “She’s a good rebounder and she’s able to finish around the basket. We’re going to need her leadership this year, and she’ll need to step into a big role with that because she is the player on our team who has the most experience. She’s played a lot of meaningful minutes for Chadwick in her career. Emily Landry is an all-state guard and also an all-state cross country runner. In the semifinal game against Walnut Grove she was absolutely dominant in the first half. She and her sister Macy are tremendous athletes and their athleticism and quickness really help our team on both ends. I played Macy at the point guard last year and that was a position she hadn’t played and she really stepped into a much bigger role last year and that gave us a lot on both ends. Defensively a lot of times she was guarding the other team’s point guard and sometimes their best perimeter player.”
While those three represent the bulk of the team’s returning experience, the Lady Cardinals also have several other juniors and freshmen to help fill out the roster. The juniors include Mylea Bertoldie, a 3-point shooter; Elly Dunn, a good rebounder; Maddy Sallee, another good rebounder who brings size to the post; and Greta Gardner, a quick and athletic player who didn’t play last season and could help defensively. Pendergrass also hopes that junior Calli Oldenburg will add a lot to the team as a physical post player after moving from Forsyth. The team’s six freshmen players––Calie Johnson, Elynn Lowery, Laney Procell, Emma Herd, Madi Rogers and Bentlea Lewis––join the high school roster after an undefeated junior high season.
Chadwick will participate in the Nixa jamboree on Nov. 19 and then opens the season by hosting the first Chadwick Flyer Invitational, named for the former railway line that ended in town. Springfield Catholic, Aurora, Niangua and RUSH are slated to compete. The Lady Cardinals will also play in the Marshfield Tip Off Tournament in early December against a field of mostly Class 5 and 6 schools, and they’ll head to tournaments at Sparta, Pleasant Hope, Seymour and Liberty after the break.
“I think we play 17 teams that are Class 3 and above,” Pendergrass said. “I went through the other day and we only play one Class 2 team and it’s Miller who will be one of the better teams in southwest Missouri. I think we’re going to be a team that will have the potential to show a lot of growth from the beginning of the season to the end because we haven’t played a lot together and we have a lot of people in different roles than they might have been last year. Ultimately our success will come down to how well we defend and how well we rebound.”
