SCOOBA — Coach Sharon Thompson knows this year’s East Mississippi Community College women’s basketball team will be another puzzle she’s got to solve.
The Lions will be led by three key sophomore “pieces,” as Thompson dubbed them: guard Tye Metcalf, forward Aamiya Rush and center Maddie Riley. They’ve got intriguing new options, too, including freshman center Ja’Mia Hollings from West Point and freshman point guard Vantasia Duncan from Forest.
With EMCC coming off last season’s 11-13 record with an 8-4 MACJC North mark, Thompson believes the Lions can finish at the top of their division again. She’ll just have to hold out hope that the pieces in her box are the right ones. Her players sure think so.
“We’ll be able to manage working together and put all the pieces together,” Metcalf said. “I think we’re gonna be a great fit.”
The 5-foot-5 guard from Southaven led the Lions in scoring with 14 points per game her freshman year, and she’ll be perhaps the biggest contributor of the seven sophomores on the roster. Riley, who led the team in rebounding with 9.1 boards per game last year, will make her presence felt on the glass again. And Rush, who averaged 10.4 points and 8.3 rebounds in her freshman season, will help out in both areas — after she returns from a broken thumb she suffered a couple weeks ago in practice.
“We still have some great post players coming in behind her that can pick up the slack, so I think it’ll be good,” said sophomore guard Alaysha Jennings, a New Hope product. “But we’ll definitely be ready to get her back.”
Jennings and guards Tia Daniels, Taylor Lattimore and Topazia Hawkins round out a solid sophomore class, and plenty of potential lies in the freshman class as well.
The Lions have been nothing but complimentary of Hollings, whose tall, thin frame earned her the nickname “Sticks” long before she joined the team.
“She has great footwork,” Metcalf said. “She’s a hard worker. She’s always hustling, and we love her. If she wants to go get a bucket, she’s gonna go get a bucket, and that’s what we need.”
Thompson knows the potential the 6-foot-1 forward/center has in the post, saying Hollings would likely be in the starting lineup come Monday’s season opener.
“Of all the freshmen, she’s probably the one I’ve been most pleased with,” Thompson said. “Great attitude about everything. It doesn’t change her demeanor. She’s one of those kids you can coach hard. She accepts hard coaching. And that’s why to me she’s ahead of all our other freshmen: because she can accept the tough coaching.”
In the backcourt, Duncan’s quickness, speed and scoring ability have her well suited to see minutes at point guard.
“We’re expecting good things out of her,” Thompson said. “She handles the ball well.”
While Thompson knows how critical returning sophomores can be in junior college basketball, the potential freshmen offer is always exciting, too.
“The best thing about a freshman is she becomes a sophomore,” Thompson said.
Walk-on freshman Keayra Hughes from Columbus High rounds out the Lions’ crop of five players from the Golden Triangle area: Rush and Hollings went to West Point, and Jennings and freshman center Julia Franks attended New Hope.
They’ll provide depth to a roster that lost in the first round of last year’s state tournament after showing promise in conference play.
“Our whole goal last year was to be ready for division play,” Thompson said. “I believe last year we were so young and inexperienced that it was gonna take us a while to get things going.”
Jennings remembers having to adjust to certain major aspects of the college game: an elevated pace and, for the first time, a shot clock.
“That is a big adjustment,” she said of the shot clock. “You don’t think about it as much as you should.”
Now Jennings is a seasoned sophomore, part of a group trying to get EMCC’s freshman class in game shape as the start of the season nears.
“For us to be sophomores, we see them in practice, and we try to tell them how to do it or correct them so they don’t keep on making the same mistakes,” Metcalf said.
Thompson’s been impressed with how her sophomores have answered the call just a year removed from their own freshman jitters.
“They’re real leaders on the court this year and doing big things for us so far, so we’re expecting bigger things from them this year,” she said.
What kind of bigger things, exactly?
“Getting that ring,” Metcalf said.
As the season begins, she’s confident that while this season may be another puzzle, the Lions hold the solution.
“We can come out undefeated,” Metcalf said. “We’ve got all the pieces we need.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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