By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

The Lake Orion High School lady Dragons kicked off their busy season earlier this month, starting with a close win against Berkley High School 48-42. In the days that followed the ladies took home losses from Oxford High School (44-35), Troy High School (46-32) and Marian High School (50-33) before snagging their second win at their home opener against Troy Athens High School 35-23 on Feb. 18.

With the Junior Varsity ladies having to quarantine for the week after a player on another team they had recently played tested positive for COVID-19, the only taste of the Athens team came from the freshman game earlier in the night where Lake Orion dominated the Red Hawks closing out the game with a 61-11 victory.

It seemed obvious from the beginning of the varsity match-up that the game was Lake Orion’s to lose, with the Dragon’s performing well and ending the first half ahead 22-5.

After losing some momentum out of the locker room, the ladies kept the lead but defensively were unable to keep Athens from going on a scoring run in the last quarter with 14 points. However, the run wasn’t enough to overcome the lead that the Dragon offense had created early on positioning Lake Orion for a win from the jump.

Individually, Kylie Heck led Lake Orion with 12 points while Maddie Ebbert contributed six points and Sydney Maddox added four.

The win put the ladies record at 2-3 overall and 2-1 in the OAA Blue division.

Like most Dragon sports this season, the girls are playing a packed schedule with almost three games a week along with new COVID-19 guidelines that require masks to be worn at all times.

“These poor kids, it’s been a mental strain on them…it’s hard for these kids. They put a lot into this and to have everything interrupted like it has been has been crazy,” Head Coach Bob Brydges said. “We’re doing the best we can, making the most of it. We keep telling them and everyone here: ‘control the controllable’, that’s all we can do. We control what we have control of, everything else, take it day by day. It’s not been easy and you’re worried about it every day.”

With eight returning players, the team maintains a lot of the depth that they had gathered last season.

“Having experience has helped a little bit because the ability to bridge the gap from this year to last year with having kids that have knowledge of how we’re doing things,” Brydges said. “At the same time, it’s been difficult because it’s been up and down. We haven’t had the ability to be having contact, we’ve had three practices where we’ve been able to have contact, that’s it. So, it’s been so strange but using our returning players as depth is good for us.”

With that, the main goal this season is to take the Blue division, something that seems entirely possible to Brydges.

“I think we’re going to be on the hunt for the Blue championship this year, which is the goal,” Brydges said. “It would be the first time since 2009 that Lake Orion girls basketball has won a league title so that would be big for us.”

In the past, the lady Dragons have had a hard time clinching title victories. This season, even with the transition to the blue division, the ladies aren’t going to be handed very many wins especially when it comes to districts. Lake Orion fights in a district conference that includes Rochester Adams, Romeo, Waterford Kettering and rivals Clarkston.

“We’re playing a tough schedule this year just because it will battle test my kids,” said Brydges. “We want to do better in districts. Since I’ve been here, we haven’t won a district game yet. We’re 0-2 in district games. So, that’s another goal: win a district game.”

On Friday, the ladies took on Stoney Creek, falling to the undefeated Cougars 41-32 and on Monday, the ladies took on Waterford Kettering coming out with a win and improving their overall record to 3-4.

The Dragons are on the road taking on the Rochester High School Flacons on Tuesday after Review press time.