Nanney sees team taking small steps forward

When John Nanney took over the Scott City girls basketball program two years ago, the team won only three games. Last year he increased the win total to eight. This year he is predicting even more victories, even without his two top scorers from last winter.

"I think we've got some younger players who will be able to step in for us," Nanney said. "I'm just looking for us to take it a step further.

"I'm just looking for improvement in all phases. I see no reason why we shouldn't win 10 games or more."

Nanney said scoring will be one difficulty his team will face. Not only did he lose his top two scorers in Kelley Hicks and Nora Glasser, both seniors on last year's team, but shooting has been erratic at some practices this season.

The Rams return senior starter Donielle Howell, who averaged about 10 points per game. She'll play the shooting guard position and also some inside.

"She's always the kid to dive on the floor to go for loose balls, she's good at getting steals on defense, rebounds well," Nanney said. "She still needs work on her shooting."

Stephanie Essner and Becky Holder also return to share the point guard duties.

"She [Becky] is pretty fast," Nanney said. "I'm trying to convince her she can shoot from the outside even more than she has. She can drive to the basket well.

"[Stephanie] is also a very good ball handler. She has developed herself as an outside shooter, which I hope to improve upon this year."

The Rams' third leading scorer last year, Whitney Tapley, also will be back to play forward. She drives to the basket well and has a nice jump shot, Nanney said. Also coming back to contribute will be Emily Essner.

Nanney has yet to decide who will start at center this season. He said the candidates are Beth Razer and Megan Raines -- two seniors who return to the Rams after not playing their junior years.

Nanney went with a zone defense during his first couple of years at Scott City, but he thinks his players are more athletic this year, so he'll likely press more and run a man-to-man defense.

He hopes good defense will keep them in games where they have trouble scoring.

"I'm just hoping to improve our overall defense and use our speed to keep scorers a little bit more to where we want them because we're not the type of team that is going to go out there and score 60, 70 points every game," he said. "So we're looking to limit teams closer to where we want them, which is in the 40s and 50s."