Time to rebuild or reload for Grays Harbor women’s basketball?

A team with only two returners is hoping a crop of new faces can get to the conference tournament this year.

Grays Harbor College women’s basketball team used a group of sophomores to make a run to the Northwest Athletic Conference Tournament last season, where they fell to Big Bend 70-59.

This year’s team is considerably younger, with nine freshmen and Sandin Kidder and Isabel Hernandez as the only two players returning from last year’s roster.

The Chokers will be looking to replace the scoring of Alexia Thrower and Angela Sikora. Thrower was the team’s leading scorer last season with 26 points-per-game. Sikora proved to be a threat from beyond the arc and was the second leading score with 14 points-per-game.

Grays Harbor head coach Chad Allan said Thrower and Sikora will be hard to replace, but he’s optimistic about the versatility of this new group

“We have different forms of weapons that will help us build on what we’ve already done,” he said. “We like to shoot the ball and we like to shoot when we’re open. We’ll be a lot stronger defensively than we’ve been in the past but the key right now is probably going to be our depth.”

The Chokers coaching staff is also hoping Kidder, Charlea Armstrong and Tedra Tovia can help make up for Sikora’s missing perimeter offense as a group.

Allan hopes everyone can chip in on the scoring effort and is hoping for an increased offensive role for Kidder this season. Kidder ended up being one of the primary ball-distributors with 3.4 assists a game last season. But with other strong passers on the team, Allan is hoping to move her off-ball more this season.

“It’s going to be hard to key in on one person. Kidder won’t have to carry things so we’ll be able to spread the love,” he said. “My hope is always to have seven people in double figures and we go from there in terms of the gameplan.”

Sandin Kidder drives the to the paint at a recent practice. Kidder is one of two returning players from last year’s roster. (Hasani Grayson | Grays Harbor News Group)

Allan plans to tinker with the offensive game plan as the season progresses and is particularly excited by the Chokers’ defensive potential. Though the team is lacking a true post player, he cited Carina Mendoza and Charlea Armstrong as big parts of the team’s perimeter defense.

Allan said it won’t be easy for teams to get penetration on drives to the paint this season despite the team’s lack of height.

“I’ll take athleticism over length any day,” he said. “Our strength and will upon people this year will be different. People aren’t just going to get to the hoop.”

A busy recruiting year sees a few more Washington natives on the roster. While players like Armstrong and Tovia both hail from the Las Vegas area, the team pulled a pair of players from the central Washington area as well.

Freshmen Keeley Teel and Sophie Blodgett are both graduates of Granger High School near Yakima and Allan is glad to see his program is drawing interest from that area for the first time.

“I go to the Yakima Valley because I know how hard-nosed it is and I come from that area. I know what you get when you get Yakima Valley kids,” he said. “These are the first kids from there that have given us a shot over here and we’re grateful to have that.”

A return to the playoffs would be ideal, but the emphasis will be on getting the freshmen up to speed.

With the team playing its first game of the season on Nov. 24 against Clark College Allan said he isn’t worried about the win-loss record as much this year.

“I want to be in the playoffs, but it’s more about playing right,” he said. “The wins and losses are going to be what they are. My focus is to get our team playing as high-caliber a level as we possibly can and get them to improve.”