Reprinted from York News-Times
By Ken Kush
YORK — “I don’t expect them to run things right, so we are working at playing together and working at a tempo that is going to be quick and where we don’t have to set up into an actual offense. Kind of scoring more in transition,” said Heartland first-year head coach Paige Peters, who was on the staff as an assistant last year. “I think we are going to play a different game than we played last year. So, this summer is about getting an idea of how the girls get up and down the court. They are not in shape right now.”
The Huskies only averaged 30.3 points per game last year and three seniors who have moved on took with them about 30% of the offense. Peters is a graduate of Bancroft-Rosalie where her dad Rod is the head coach and she has family in the Heartland area with both sets of grandparents living in Henderson.
Peters said that it is key that the girls remain positive and also added that a lot of young girls are going to have to step up. She said that she also received some advice from former York girls head coach Matt Kern.
“We had Matt Kern talk to us this summer and he told us to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. That is what I like to do with these girls,” said Peters. “We are having a lot of girls step up this year who didn’t play a lot of minutes last year and that is exciting to see. We will get to see them in some spots where maybe they don’t feel comfortable. Especially that last game. We just have to be positive because not everything is going to go right and I told the girls I don’t expect you to run things right all the time, but do enough good things so we can get an idea of what it will be like.”
Peters does have a leading scorer, and now junior Mia Hiebner is returning. She averaged 7.5 points per game and also pulled down nearly two rebounds a night. Seniors Jamisen Klein and Emerysn Oswald combined to score 8.1 points together and each were active on the glass with 2.8 and 2.4 boards respectively.
Peters said that because she found out about being head coach later in the year, she had a hard time finding camps for the girls to attend because they were filling up.
“This summer I found out a little later that I was going to be head coach so a lot of the camps were filling up. We have been to Lutheran High Northeast in Norfolk earlier this summer, went to Omaha Gross and we are finishing out here today in York,” Peters commented. “We have had some open gyms and things like that just to get some shots up. I tell the girls it is their responsibility to get into the gym to get better and that will tell where we will be when the season gets here.”
With the addition of the 35 second shot clock to the game this year, Peters feels that the tempo she wants the team to play at will not be affected by it.
“Right now, a lot of the summer camps are not using the 3 -second clock shot clock, but like I said, the tempo that we plan to play with should not affect this team, and I am not really concerned about it,” Peters stated. “We are going to get a lot of shots up in the games, so the shot clock should not really affect us at all. I am looking forward to working with the girls and what we can do as a team. I am looking to see what we can build here at Heartland and these summer camps show us what we need to work on and what it will be like come time to start the season.”
