Caston 6/717

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

FULTON — The Caston girls basketball team’s fairytale season is over.

Now the hard work of building the program back up has started anew.

The fairytale included another perfect record in Hoosier North play – they have not lost a conference game since December 2021 – and the program’s first sectional title since 1985. They achieved that milestone with a heartstopping one-point win over Tri-County in the sectional final.

And then they won their first regional title ever over Bethany Christian and got to do it on their home court.

But starters Isabel Scales, Addison Zimpleman, Macee Hinderlider and Alexa Finke graduated, and top reserve Annie Harsh also moved on.

That leaves sophomore point guard Madi Douglass as the leading returning scorer and the only returning starter.

“It’s going to be a huge adjustment for her,” Caston coach Josh Douglass said. “One, she’s going to have to be in a tremendous amount of shape, better shape than she’s probably ever been in, due to the fact that she will be the main focal point of most scouting reports, I would assume. So she’s got to put herself in a different mindset to be how she was in junior high, more so in attack mode. Last year, she filled that complementary role of being a shooter, attack when need be. But now she’s got to be in attack mode all the time for us.”

The rest of the varsity roster includes senior forwards Olivia Thomas and Kaitie Hutsell, juniors Camila Hernandez-Rios and Kylee Logan, sophomore Natalie Warner and freshmen Hadlie Coffing, Grace Colvin and Allison Craig.

Grace Wright, who played with the team all summer and whom coach Douglass called “our main point guard at different times,” transferred to Decatur Central the week before school started.

“So we went back to square one when practice started and had to move pieces around again,” coach Douglass explained. “We obviously had to change some things back up.”

Coach Douglass thinks the strength of the team at the start could be shooting.

“We’re fairly strong at ballhandling,” coach Douglass said. “You can always get better at ballhandling though. Don’t get me wrong on that. I do think some of our strong points is as we get older and more experienced, our ability to shoot the basketball with these girls is pretty good.”

But as with many young teams, avoiding turnovers will be a challenge.

“We have a lot of ability,” coach Douglass said. “The speed of the game is where we’re probably going to struggle early on because we have a lot of new faces and a lot of inexperience. So the speed of the game is where we’re going to have our issues to begin with. Turnovers will come from the speed of it, just not used to the quickness of everything.”

The 5-8 Thomas is the next most experienced player after Madi Douglass. Coach Douglass said he hopes her game will resemble that of a seven-time NBA rebounding leader from the 1990s.

“She’s going to have to become aggressive inside for us, mainly on the defensive side and the rebounding side,” coach Douglass said. “Because she’s got some height to her, but we need her to get that inner Dennis Rodman and go after rebounds for us big-time and then obviously knock down the open shot when it’s there for her.”

Hutsell will play a similar role – defending, blocking shots and rebounding – though her ramp up to the season has slowed down after hand surgery and she is not expected to play against West Central in the season opener tonight.

Logan is recovered from an ankle injury during volleyball season and will move into a full-time varsity role.

“She has range from the outside, so she’s going to help us from an offensive standpoint from that,” coach Douglass said.

Hernandez-Rios will provide added depth at guard, but her role will be completely different from Logan’s.

“Camila is your defensive person,” coach Douglass said. “She’s so quick on defense and can help us. It’s kind of like they might be subbing for each other (Logan and Hernandez-Rios) on different things because of what they bring to us – two totally opposite players on the spectrum probably from a skill set on the way they play the game. They’re both going to help us. I’m still trying to figure out how the pieces come together there.”

A third junior, Autumn Miller, is recovering from knee surgery.

Warner is Caston’s tallest player at 6-1. She’s relatively inexperienced at basketball, and her freshman season was injury-plagued. Coaches have stressed footwork with her at practice.

“She posted hard (at practice), and we’re trying to get her to go to the basket hard and not fade away and use her length,” coach Douglass said. “But she’s another one that I can see helping us because of her length. It’s just again learning the movement. Keep moving. Rebound. Go up strong once you get that rebound. I’m hoping with playing that comes more. Because last year was her first year playing after a few-year hiatus. I’m hoping this year with more playing, she gets that aggressiveness to her when she catches the ball down low and goes up strong and either draws a foul or gets the layup to go.”

In addition to Coffing, Colvin and Craig, there are five other freshmen in the program: Gigi Berry, Ellie Zartman, Ava Russell, Adyson Steininger and Trinity Zimmerman.

“I think Grace Colvin, you’re going to see her out there as a guard quite a bit,” coach Douglass said. “Her length and ability to handle the basketball is what puts her up there right away because we need that other ballhandler out there right away because we need that other ballhandler now that Grace Wright is gone. So baptism by fire with her.”

Craig is a forward who is listed at 5-8 but whom Douglass speculated might be closer to 5-9 or 5-10 and whom Douglass said has long arms.

“She’s going to see time,” coach Douglass said. “Her ability to shoot the ball outside and inside… she’s going to help us tremendously now and down the road. Because offensively, she’s probably our most talented offensive big right now.”

The 5-2 Coffing plays “extremely hard,” according to coach Douglass.

“She’s another one that’s going to help us because she can handle the ball, and she can shoot the ball,” coach Douglass said. “Just a hard-nosed player.”

Caston allowed just 31 points per game last year and ranked third in the state in defensive scoring average. From Nov. 14-Dec. 21, they held eight consecutive opponents under 30 points.

Getting back to that level will be a challenge.

“And that’s where we’re probably struggling the most is on that defensive end and learning the movement of how I like to pressure,” coach Douglass said. “And moving girls around. … I think Ellie Zartman is a perfect example of being super young. She’s a freshman, but she’s quick, long, athletic. She just needs time. She would be a wing on a defense for us.

“We’ll probably play a lot more zone this year until we get some things figured out.”

Caston has added Oregon-Davis, a new conference rival, to their schedule. The traditional season opener against Argos has been pushed down to Nov. 19 now that they are a conference opponent. Caston has added West Central to their schedule, and they will meet tonight in the season opener. Other new nonconference opponents include South Bend St. Joe and DeMotte Christian, who like West Central is a team the Lady Comets could see again in the sectional.

In many ways, with such a young team, now is when the program culture takes prominence.

“I told them our goals are the same this year as what they were last year,” coach Douglass said. “Nothing changes. How we get there might be different than what we did last year, but we show up to practice every day, and we practice hard, and we push ourselves. Make our mistakes and move on from them. Just get better.”

Caston girls basketball schedule (all times Eastern)

Nov. 7 – vs. West Central, 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 9 – at Rochester, 7 p.m.

Nov. 12 – at Peru, 7:45 p.m.

Nov. 15 – vs. North White, 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 16 – vs. Winamac, 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 19 – vs. Argos, 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 25 – at Oregon-Davis, 8 p.m.

Dec. 4 – vs. Logansport, 6 p.m. (Cass County Invitational, first round)

Dec. 7 – Cass County Invitational at Logansport (vs. Pioneer or Lewis Cass)

Dec. 12 – at North Judson, 8 p.m.

Dec. 14 – vs. Triton, 2:30 p.m.