By Megan Kelley
Staff Writer
ORION TWP. — Lake Orion High School’s varsity girls basketball team kicked off their season last Friday with a dominating win over Notre Dame Prep, defeating the Fighting Irish 68-23.
Last season, the Dragons had a stacked team of senior players who cruised through the district tournament before being knocked out in the regional finals by West Bloomfield, who would go on to take second in the state.
After graduating nine seniors, and now only having four seniors (one returning varsity), it seemed this season would be more of a rebuilding year for Lake Orion, but as the team comes together, head coach Bob Brydges expects to see his team compete well in the OAA Red and make another run in the district tournament.
“As far as depth goes. We’ll rely on some of the younger kids coming up this year. We have five sophomores, but most of them played some varsity ball this summer. So, we’ll be looking at them to continue their growth with minutes at varsity, and we’re going to have those minutes available to them,” Brydges said. “We’re looking at it as somewhat of a rebuilding year but the nice part is that we have some talented kids still here and we’ll play into their strengths as much as we can.”
As he’s done in years past, Brydges plans to push defense and use his team’s athleticism to control tempo.
“We’re very athletic. We’re able to run. We can push tempo this year and we’re going to run the floor a lot. Obviously, we’re going to push on defense as our number one thing, we’re going to play great defense,” Brydges said. “I don’t know how much we’re going to score this year, I just don’t know.”
As far as goals this year go, defense holds a high priority.
“The biggest thing that we don’t want to see is we don’t want to see a letdown on the defensive end. We want to continue to play very tough defense. We want people to go, ‘wow we’re going to have a battle on our hands playing Lake Orion because they play tough defense’,” Brydges said. “We’re going to strive to be top three in the Red this year, which we were last year, we finished second in the Red last year. Be ready for districts, get a lot of points, be the number one seed in our district again, hopefully play Clarkston in the final again, and hopefully beat Clarkston in the final again.”
The OAA Red Division hosts some of the top teams in the state including state runners up West Bloomfield, as well as Rochester, Stoney Creek, Oxford and Clarkston.
Not only does Brydges want to beat Clarkston again this year, but so does his team, including senior captain Ryann Pawlaczyk who named them as the team she’s most excited to play. Pawlaczyk, who is one of two captains this year along with junior Izzy Wotlinski, is heading into the season ready for a fight.
“I’m coming into this with an open mind, we lost a lot of seniors but I think we have so much talent and we’re just trying to work together and see how we become the type of team we want to be and once we figure that out, every game will be a dog fight,” said Pawlaczyk. “These are some of the most hardworking girls I know.”
After two impressive seasons and two back-to-back district wins and subsequent regional runs, Brydges is also excited to continue building up the program and community.
“I’m excited because we’ve started really developing a culture and a tradition around here about girls basketball. People are actually finally excited to watch girls basketball at Lake Orion, which hasn’t happened in 15 years,” Brydges said. “We’re counting on the community to come out and support us big time.”
Heading into the game against Notre Dame Prep, Brydges expected to take on whatever defense was thrown at them, citing the team’s three point shooting as a key strength that should help control the Irish’s defense.
That night, the Dragons took a quick lead, coming out fast right off the jump heading into the second quarter 22-9. The second quarter was slower for both teams as turnovers plagued the court, but Lake Orion kept the lead at the half 36-19.
In the second half, Lake Orion rained point after point, with seven players getting on the board to finish the game 68-23.
Individual highlights for the Dragons include Pawlaczyk with 19 points and three rebounds, junior Navaeh Wood with 16 points and 11 rebounds, Wotlinski with 11 points, 10 assists and six rebounds, Charlotte Peplowski with nine points, and Ellie Britt with five points and five assists.
The ladies start the season 1-0 overall and will host Plymouth High School at 7 p.m.on Friday in the Lake Orion High School Fieldhouse.