Media Days: Yukon Girls

Originally Published: Nov 16, 2010 1:59 PM CDT

Layna Dewell
Oklahoma Sports Staff Writer
OKLAHOMA CITY—The expectations of the Yukon girls basketball team are high as they enter the 2010-11 season.

After a one point loss in area last year, the Millerettes are hungry for another run further into the playoffs.

Yukon is ranked No. 12 in CoachesAid preseason top 20, and now that CoachKellyClarke has settled into coaching girls basketball, they are ready to show what they’ve got.

Jade Hardy, a 5-foot-4 senior will lead the attack for the Lady Millerettes. Last season she averaged 10 points per game and has no plans of slowing down.

“I’m expecting a lot this year, we have a really good group of people here and I think we’re going to do well and I think we have great things ahead of us.”

Coach Clark says it helps that his squad has great motivation, desire, work ethic and chemistry which allows the players to complement each other well.

“We think we can move up [in the rankings],” said Clarke. “We like where we’re at, but it’s easier to sneak up on people sometimes, but there are some teams ahead of us that we beat two or three times last year.”

Another senior playmaker for Yukon is Kierstin Deckard. The 6-foot post who averaged six points and six rebounds last season said she not only has high expectations for the team this year, but also looks to their defense as a key factor to their success.

Coach Clark says the team must stay healthy and get better at free throws.

“The Thing that’s so exciting is that these kids want to be here,” said Clark. “They like being in the gym, they spend time afterwards?and so when you get things like that going on and you’ve got juniors sitting here also that are going to come up, there’s not a whole lot you can’t accomplish, so we’re excited to get the opportunity to knock off some of those upper echelon teams."

Clark summed it up by saying, “I do think this could be the start of something really big.”