It’s a new season with a lot of new names on the varsity roster for Lake Orion High School Girls Basketball.
Head coach Steve Roberts will return five of his Dragons this season: seniors Katie Campbell, Lindsey Randazzo, Lauren Larocca and Jessica McLean; and junior Amanda Noll.
Quad-captains for the 2003 season are Campbell, Randazzo, Larocca and McLean. Along with Noll, they are joined by a group of newcomers to the varsity program.
Among the new to varsity are juniors Amoy Burkett, a post player; Catie Fosmoen, Blaire James, Stephanie Johnson, and Jessica Tasco. Chelsea Richards joins the Dragons after playing junior varsity basketball for Marion last year. Margaret Verspie is a new addition as a transfer from Pennsylvania, where she played junior varsity ball.
Lake Orion has already played two tough games in the pre-season, losing by two to Oxford and by four to Lansing.
“We’re getting a lot of shots up,” he said. “Katie Campbell is averaging 18 points a game, and Lindsey Randazzo is averaging 15. As a team our average is 37.5 points a game, and that’s about what we did last year.”
The Dragons will travel to Monroe before playing some OAA crossover games with Harrison, North Farmington and Waterford Mott. The last 14 games on the team’s schedule will be league games in OAA I.
“OAA I was recently ranked as the fifth best conference in the state,” Roberts said. “Our wins and losses may not indicate how good we are.
“Our program has improved every year, and we want to improve this year on our seventh out of eight teams finish last season.”
Roberts hopes to surprise some teams in the league with the Dragons’ outside shooting game.
“The area we need to cope with is inexperience at the varsity level,” he said. “We’ll grow as a team and improve, and only get better.”
Roberts calls his team “young, but competitive.”
“The attitudes have been great…even if we lose, we want to continue to have that winning attitude…enjoy each other, win or lose,” he said. “One of the goals with the newcomers is to get them all to mesh as one team.”
Varsity players have been working on determining their various roles on the team in the pre-season.
“They’re acknowledging the roles…accepting them are key. But they’re always subject to change,” said Roberts.
“We’re striving to win, but we’re also striving to develop the attributes that go along with winning.”