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Sports

Beachwood Girls' Basketball Team Opens Season With Victory

New coach Jones seeks to put team's past controversies in rear-view mirror

New girls’ basketball knows there will be more than a few eyes on him this season.

but coach Melvin Burke breached district policy by soliciting donations without administrator permission and

Some might continue to dwell on the decision made this past May, but Jones won’t be one of them.

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To his way of thinking, he’s a got a basketball team to run, and the Lady Bison’s 2011-2012 campaign got off to a fast start with a commanding 51-35 season-opening victory at Wickliffe on Friday night.

“I’m coming into a new season. Whatever happened last year, I just kind of shut the door on all of that stuff. I tried to focus on the new stuff. If you focus on the past, you’ll miss the present,” Jones said.

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Sophomore Aneisha Hardin led all scorers with 16 points. Sophomore Monique Kaiser followed with 15 points, and sophomore Mikah Aldridge had 12. Sara Trefzger was the only Wickliffe player in double figures with 11 points.

After a tight first quarter, the Lady Bison pulled away, outscoring Wickliffe 13-5 and 11-5 in the second and third quarter, respectively, to put the game away.

“It was pretty fun. I think we played outstanding defense. We pressed. We got back on defense. We created a lot of turnovers. Our defense made our offense go,” Jones said. “Our ball pressures, our traps led to a lot of our scoring.”

Amazingly, Beachwood dressed just seven players for the game. The Lady Bison only has 10 players on the roster and most are quite young after the team lost the services of Maya Eddie and Amber Bogard to graduation.

Stalwart post player Mercedes Hudson is no longer at Beachwood, according to Jones.

Seven of the Lady Bison’s 10 players are in their first two years of high school with freshmen Cameron Leathers Clayborne and Jade Baskerville and sophomores Christina Oden and Autumn Daniel also holding that distinction.

Senior Krystal Pearson, who tore her ACL and won’t be available until the playoffs in March, and Kyndal Wilson are the only two seniors. Junior Terrina Robinson is ineligible to play until Dec. 31.

Some would consider this to be an out-and-out disaster to have such limited resources, but Jones, who has 15-plus years of experience as a coach, sees a great opportunity ahead for the Lady Bison.

“Not having all those girls makes a big difference,” Jones said, “but if we’re focusing on our defense, that’ll change the game and we’ll be in good shape.”

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