Lady Jags not ready to take step back

The Spain Park High School girls basketball team is by no means starting over.

The Lady Jaguars won the Class 7A state championship last winter for the second time in three years behind the consistent dominance of Sarah Ashlee Barker. With Barker now at the University of Georgia, most programs would expect a down year.

But Spain Park returns all of its other starters, and the Lady Jags have their sights set on another successful season.

“Obviously, it will be less dominant on one player,” Spain Park head coach Mike Chase said. “All the load of everything is spread between more players. We’re going to be deeper this year. We can be a little more diverse in some of the things that we do.”

If there is one thing Barker passed down to her successors at Spain Park, Chase said it’s the leadership that she learned from the ones before her.

“She learned that from her teammates, and she’s passed that on to those guys,” he said. “We’re not going to have a dominant leader, but we’re going to be leader by committee, and we’ve got a bunch of guys that are going to step up and take that challenge.”

Things certainly won’t be made easier without one of the top players in the state, but this year’s team will resemble more closely the ones Chase has spent much of his career at Clay-Chalkville and Spain Park coaching.

“If I had to coach outside my box, it was last year, having a player that was dominant in virtually every aspect,” he said. “In the past, we didn’t have a leading scorer; we just had kids who could all score.”

There will still be several familiar faces on the floor this winter for the Lady Jags. Senior Avery Masdon will be one of the team’s go-to forces, along with junior returning guards Mackenzie Culpepper and Camille Chase. All three will be able to share the ball-handling duties, something Chase is not worried about.

“They’re natural point guards; they just played a different position,” Chase said of their roles in previous seasons.

Alanah Pooler, Katie Flannery and Haley Russell return as well, giving the Lady Jags plenty of experience from the forward position as well. 

The Lady Jags also added Jordy Griggs to the mix — a 6-foot-2 sophomore from California who has already garnered national attention. She can do it all, according to Chase. She is a “phenomenal athlete — long, can jump and can run.” Chase expects there to be a learning curve for Griggs but believes she will continuously improve throughout the season.

Jaycee Haynes, Kerri Barnes, Alex Baskin, Stephanie Tooson and Paxton Gillispie round out the Spain Park roster.

While the Lady Jags have high hopes for the 2020-21 season, Class 7A, Area 6 will do them no favors. While Spain Park is the defending state champion, Vestavia Hills and Hewitt-Trussville are programs on the rise, and now Gadsden City enters the fold, bringing in a program that won its area last year as well.

“Three good teams already coming back in our area, and you bring in an area champ,” Chase said. “Nobody’s going to go 6-0 … When we get to January, we’ve got to be clicking.”