December 12, 2017 By Chris Varney
Last Friday, the North Mahaska girls basketball team played 6 players, all of them sophomores in a basketball game. No it was not a JV game. It was a varsity match-up and no Head Coach L.E. Moore is not going out of his mind. You see, these sophomores are good. Really good. The Warhawks are so good that the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union believes that they are good enough to be ranked #3 in the state in Class 1A. These sophomore beat Montezuma 51-45, the Bravettes also a good team, ranked #8.
I wonder if Moore is taking any heat from senior and junior parents for not playing their girls last Friday. Well, I guess there were not any complaints from the junior’s parents because there are no juniors on the team. There are three seniors but they have not been able to crack the starting lineup. You knew that this was coming because Moore largely started 4 freshmen last year and actually started 5 freshmen at the end of the season because of injuries. Either way, as the wins continue to mount, the complaint department at North Mahaska is probably pretty empty right now.
These 6 sophomores are led by 5’10” Kassidi Steel, who averages 18.7 points a game. Steel can shoot the three and she can score inside making her very difficult to guard. And then when you foul her, she is actually a high school player who knows how to shoot from the free throw line, going 19-20 so far this season. Then there’s speedy Cheyenne Shaw at 13.2 ppg, Emma Tyrrel (9.3 ppg), Jade Hay (9.0), Paige Layman (6.0) and Lydia Stodghill comes off the bench.
Moore’s philosophy has not changed — play defense, create turnovers, play defense, run all over the floor, play defense, wreck havoc, and did I mention they play defense? The Warhawks lead the SICL in steals with 92, points per game with 61.3, assists with 83, they have the second fewest turnovers with 69 and they lead the state in sophomores starting with 5. That means teams will have to deal with this bunch the next two years as well.
The problem is that North Mahaska is pretty good right now. And yet Coach Moore has gotten his team thinking that they were the underdog last Friday against Montezuma, even though they were at home. Moore says his team plays well when they got a chip on their shoulder. That motivation may have worked once but no one else should believe that the Warhawks will be underdogs the rest of the season. These super sophomores are now the favorites to win the girls SICL, and maybe we’ll see them in the Well in late February. Coach Moore though would dismiss such talk, he only looks ahead to the steps right in front of him.
Listen to Head Coach L.E. Moore in this week’s Coaches Corner at myiowainfo.com. North Mahaska Coaches Corner airs every Monday at 12:50pm on 1410 KGRN.
