"I'm proud of the way they are handling it, we seem to be heading in the right direction," notes Freeport girls' basketball Coach Ron Grove. That IS something to proud of—both coach and players. Grove stepped into the Lady Yellow Jackets' head coaching spot after previous coach Kirk Lorrigan took an Elderton's principal's position this October. "They had to get used to me, I had to get used to them. They had to know what to expect from me from last year," Grove says.

That was no easy task, for the team or the coach. Although Grove's "Hoops DNA" includes 18 years of coaching roundball at Freeport in positions ranging from retired boys' Coach Garrie Davies' varsity program to the girls' middle school program, he and the Lady Yellow Jackets have big shoes to fill. Last year's Lady Jackets landed in the Big Dance, the state playoffs, but a solid nucleus of no less than seven seniors graduated, all of them integral contributors to the squad's success.

This winter's squad has two returning seniors who had a little playing time. "Everybody else is new to the program," the coach says. Ron had a lot to do that first month. "The thing I felt we needed to do was get that experience, getting a lot of girls in there, 10, 11, 12 sometimes I play, getting that experience they lack," he explains. "They seem to be responding very well to that."

The Lady Jackets' skipper points out that the girls' response is evident in their commitment to learning to play together:

"I hate to say what every coach says, but these girls are hard-working. First couple of weeks, we had 3 hour practices. They went hard at it for all 3 hours. They're anxious to get to practice, they're anxious to work hard. They're picking up on some new concepts we're putting out there. They work hard with each other, pick each other up and push each other. It's a good group of girls." Ron Groves verbally sketches the Lady Yellow Jackets' team for you in the online audio webcast at Alle-Kiski Today Online.