Early December brings a flurry of winter sports here at Oyster River High School (ORHS). It looks like this year has also brought shining hope for the girls’ basketball team.
With a 13-6 record, last year’s season came to an unfortunate end in the preliminary round for the second year in a row. So, what makes this year’s team different? Familiar faces. For the first time in three years, the Bobcats are seeing consistency in the head coach position. They are welcoming back coach Bryan Wall for another year. This in addition to only losing two seniors from last year creates a very strong team.
Wall returning has brought hope to the team that they haven’t felt in a while. Team Manager Willow Horne (‘25) stated that she has yet to see any of her coaches seem as comfortable as Wall is this fall. “He’s definitely more comfortable now and we are more comfortable with him as our coach,” says Horne. “Three coaches in the past three years has been a bit of a struggle.”
Although they do have most of the team returning, losing two graduated seniors is sure to hurt. “We lost both of our post players. Finding people to fill their shoes is going to be challenging,” said forward Caitlin Klein (‘25). This can be difficult because size is a big factor in being a successful post player, which they’ll have to work around.
However, there are ways around this as they’ll likely focus their game on other aspects as opposed to working underneath. They already have a fast-paced offense, but Klein suggests that speeding it up further and focusing more on outside shooting could help prevent their lack of size from hurting them.
The team’s offseason was thrilling as they battled out a summer league victory. “I think it’s the first we’ve won,” said Klein. “We had a really good turnout of players with a lot of good freshmen.”
With the summer league win, the Bobcats next task became carrying that momentum over to the fall and preseason. “We always play really well in the summer but we’ve always broken apart once fall hits. I feel like I haven’t noticed that though,” said guard Wren Horne (‘26).
Beyond pride and confidence, this sense of connection that the team build during the summer seemed to be their best takeaway. “Summer was great. We really bonded, more so than I saw last year,” said Wall. “They were all really into it and it led to a very successful summer,” he added.
To kick off the season this year, the team takes a trip to Hollis-Brookline, a team who the Bobcats have gotten the better of as of late. “They’re a really good team,” says Wren Horne. “We beat them two seasons ago thanks to a buzzer beater and last year was a good game.”
Wall has nothing but optimism for the coming season and is certain his team will back him up in every way. “From our seniors to our upcoming freshmen, it’s such a good group and they’re so into basketball, which is going to make this year a lot of fun,” said Wall.
As the season looms closer, expectations for the Bobcats are steadily rising as they look to be in for a great year. The season kicks off December 13th at Hollis Brookline, but be sure to head to the ORHS gym on December 20th for the home opener against Kennett.
– Kevin Kell
Images courtesy of Kelly Anderson
Mouth of the River 
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