MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — This offseason is a case of deja vu for Trinity Christian girls’ basketball coach Mike Baldy.
Four seasons ago, Baldy took charge of a program with potential — and not much else. He inherited a team of nine girls; eight who were embarking on their first season of high school basketball.
Baldy proved a patient frontman, slowly developing his program into a statewide contender at the Class A level, culminating in two consecutive state tournament appearances, including a trip to the semi-finals this year.
Now, Baldy finds himself in a similar position. The Warriors’ are set to lose seven of 10 players from their 2018-19 squad, with no freshmen entering the program. He’ll likely have to find players who have little to no experience on the hardwood, and will rely on a small group of returners to carry on the foundation laid in recent seasons.
“Right now, the challenge is finding girls to play,” Baldy said. “We’re confident if girls come out we can make them ball players — we just need girls to step out of their comfort zone and try.”
Returner Jaclyn Smith agrees with her coach.
“I think that losing seven players is going to be very difficult but with the help of coach Baldy and the other staff I think we’ll be able to grow as a team,” she said. “We’re going to be small but we’re still going to work our hardest to get as far as we can. The other returners and new additions to the team will have to step up and maybe play roles they feel uncomfortable with, but I know it’s possible to succeed with everyone behind us and supporting us.”
Luckily for Baldy, the plan is essentially already in place — he needs players to fill the roles. He understand how the process works, and he’s ready to take on such a challenge again.
“Once we have the numbers, we will just follow the same plan I laid out four years ago when we had a ton of first year players,” he said. “It takes a lot of patience and a lot of work on skills, but it’s rewarding if you see it through. We have an outline of how to do this, because we’ve done it successfully before. The biggest keys are positivity and patience. We will focus on the good aspects of each player while building the areas that need improvement.”
For Smith, as well as her fellow returners Maggie Mercure and Katie White, it’s time to step into roles filled be players such as Reagan Sharp, Leighton Croft and Rachel Rosen, who helped carve an identity for a program that lacked one.
Smith has already taken a proactive role, preparing to help bring girls into the program and teach them the culture that is now in place.
“We need to encourage other girls within the school to come out and play, then throughout the season, we need to try our hardest to be good role models for younger girls,” she said. “By doing this I feel like the team will grow stronger together and be able to trust each other more on and off the court. By trusting each other, I think we will be able to go a long way, along with using each other’s talents to succeed.”
Baldy will look for his returners to become natural leaders like their older teammates before them — he believes they’re more than capable of it, and is excited to see what the future holds for the group.
“I look for our returners to really play well for us,” he said. “I know they can play well, more than anything, I want them to continue to uphold the team culture that we have established. We have such positive vibes in our program. We look for them to carry the torch as far as team culture goes.”
