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Stead Feels He Finally Has Stability With Red Riders

By RALPH COX

WEIRTON — For the past three years, Weir girls’ coach Rick Stead has worked to get some stability in his program and for the first time he feels the hard work and dedication his girls have put in will pay off.

Stead has 19 girls out for basketball and preliminary expectations are that there will be nine on the varsity team and 10 in the jayvee program.

“When I came on board as an assistant to Bill Smith eight years ago, we struggled to get 12 girls out for basketball,” Stead said. “We had to bring young girls up from the middle school so we had enough to practice. Often times we had to cancel the jayvee game or play with just five.

“I almost had enough freshman to have a team this year, but a couple of girls that I expected to come out for basketball, and they are good athletes, were selected on the cheering squad. But we still have five very promising freshmen.”

Stead will enter the season with his entire starting lineup from a year ago intact, along with a couple of other girls that saw quality minutes on the 3-18 team.

“We had no seniors on the team last year and we’ll still be a young team this year with only one senior, but the kids have come back stronger, more mature and eager to play basketball. We should be much improved from a year ago,” Stead said.

Stead’s daughter, Bailey, is the lone senior. She returns as the leading scorer and rebounder from a year ago when she averaged about 15 points a game.

Sophomore Sophia Mikula is another starter returning and was the second leading scorer as a freshman last year averaging about 12 points a game.

The other members of the starting unit returning are juniors Gia Fuscardo and Julia Gianni and sophomore Taylor Webster.

“I have made it very clear that just because those girls were the starters last year doesn’t mean they automatically will be the starters this year,” Stead said. “Everything is open. Myself and the other coaches have decided that we will put the best five players on the floor. We keep telling them it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish.

“I think we have enough athleticism and talent to be competitive as we have retooled the schedule to now include more 2A competition. We’re still in Division 5 in the OVAC with the big schools like Brooke,Wheeling Park, Morgantown, University and others and we’ll still have to compete in the region with defending state champion Fairmont Senior, North Marion and East Fairmont, but we’ll worry about that when we get that far in the tournament.

“I expect us to be competitive and in position to win during the regular season. A lot of the kids played in the AAU and summer leagues and it looks like a lot of the things we’ve tried to teach them is settling in. The shooting has improved, the defense has improved, the ball handling has improved and they seemed to be a lot more aggressive in the off season games.

“We have tried to build confidence and keep the program growing over the last two years and the players now are ready to show the progress they’ve made and grow the program. They now are grasping what it takes to be competitive but like it has been over the past several years it still is a work in progress.”

Other letter winners returning from last year are juniors Alexis Vuiller, Samantha Kaczmarek, Treasure Elmore-Sartor and Katelynn McCallister.

Stead said he has a good group of sophomores that probably will open the season on junior varsity, but have a good chance to gain varsity minutes. They are Olivia Bernola, Sarah Hudacheck, Hanna Wenner and Alexis Rowland. Sierra Huey, a junior out for basketball for the first time and fellow junior Cory Pierce also are in that mix.

The coaching staff remains intact with Jessica Naughton, Jim Davis and Ray Case.

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