Tucker County Girls’ Basketball Team:(L-R, Front) Sydney Moore, Madison Reall, Cecily Strawderman, Emily Crosten, Abbey Eye, (L-R, Back) Jenna Walker, Leslie Nestor, Lydia Mullenax, Lily Nestor, Jenna White, Sydney Nestor, Elizabeth Nichols – Photo by Becky Moore
By Dave Helmick
TuckerCountySports.Com
The Lady Mt. Lions will open their season at home on December 1st against Philip-Barbour. Head Coach Jim Ambrose returns for his 4th season at Tucker County High School. Ambrose returns several girls with experience including 2 starters and several with varsity experience. Last season the Lady Mt. Lions advanced to the final four for the 3rd straight year where they fell to Wheeling Central in the Semi-Finals. The Tucker County Girls’ Basketball team will try to make it 12 straight State Tournament appearances as last year the Girls’ program made their 22nd overall appearance and their 11th in a row. Coach Ambrose spoke briefly about the tradition at Tucker County saying, “We work hard to get to Charleston, the last three years we have won a game and played on Friday, our ultimate goal was to play on Saturday and I think this year we have as good a chance of anybody to win a State Championship.”
The leading scorer from last year’s team and starter, sophomore Sydney Nestor returns this year. Starter and second leading scorer from a year ago junior Elizabeth Nichols also returns. Players that return with significant varsity experience and expect to push for a spot in the starting lineup are: Sydney Moore(sophomore), Madison Reall(senior), Leslie Nestor(senior) and Lily Nestor(senior). Other players that look to contribute this year are: Emily Crosten(sophomore), Lydia Mullenax(senior), Jenna White(senior), Jenna Walker(junior), Cecily Strawderman(sophomore) and Abbey Eye(senior). Ambrose said, “There are 21 girls out this year, 7 freshman, 12 varsity players and 10 JV players and 1 girl that will play both varsity and JV, this group seems to be working hard this group has played more basketball any other group and that is exciting.”
This year the schedule has changed a little bit with some new opponents added to make it a tougher schedule than last year. The Lady Mt. Lions will host St. Marys on Saturday Dec 5th. Tucker County will travel to Keyser for a pair of contest in back to back nights against “AA” Fairmont Senior and either Keyser or Spring Mills the following night in the Lady Tornados Holiday Mixer on Dec 28th and 29th. In the middle of January the Lady Mt. Lions will travel to St. Marys to compete in the St. Marys Tournament for the second year in a row. Tucker County will face Trinity on Friday January 15th and then take on either St. Marys or Wirt County the following day January 16th. The Lady Mt. Lions will travel to old “AA” rival Lincoln on January 30th. The schedule still includes home and home contest against “AA” Philip-Barbour and Petersburg along with PVC foes Pocahontas County, Pendleton County, East Hardy, Tygarts Valley and Moorefield. The Lady Mt. Lions will also face Notre Dame home and away and then they will host Charleston Catholic on February 6th at TCHS. “This could probably be one of the toughest schedules we have played”, said Coach Ambrose
For a full season schedule go to TuckerCountySports.Com. Next week look for the Tucker County Boys’ Basketball Preview.