RANDY HISNER
WZBD.com
For the first time since the 2019-20 season, the South Adams girls’ basketball team will feature only one starter named Pries.
Peyton Pries, the older sister in the Pries family show, graduated last year, moving on to the University of St. Francis, where she is playing volleyball. She helped lead the Starfires to a 13-11 record last season.
Luckily for Hall of Fame coach Wayne Kreiger, Macy Pries, a senior, is still around, ready to join her big sister in the 1,000-point club. She has scored 902 points and should reach that coveted milestone early in the season.
Kreiger knows he will miss Peyton. “Peyton was a 1,000-point scorer, and any way you cut it, when you lose someone who did all the things she did in terms of scoring, assists, and rebounds and being just a solid all-around player, I’m not sure you can replace that type of individual,” he said. “We are going to have to do our best to create those things she did by dividing them up between a couple people. That’s a big loss for us, for sure.”
The Starfires will also have to adapt to losing two other starters, Cora Baker and Delaney Dunnuck. “Those girls were very good role players, Cora working inside and Delaney on the boards and also hitting some threes,” noted Kreiger. “We’re going to have to fill those spots too.”
A big key to the season, Kreiger thinks, is how well his team can pick up the slack offensively after losing the scoring punch provided by that trio of graduates.
Macy Pries, a first-team All-ACAC selection, led the team in scoring last year with a 15.2 average, Kreiger, stating the obvious, said, “Macy will be the focal point of many defenses.” He hopes that senior Liz Gerber and sophomore Laney Trausch will step up to take some of the pressure off her.
Gerber averaged 3.5 points last year and demonstrated an ability to hit the mid-range jumper. Trausch—the team’s most improved player, according to Kreiger—averaged only 2.6 points, but that was in limited minutes. “She played mostly JV ball last year,” Kreiger said, “but we moved her up toward the end, and she has continued to progress since last season. She does a really nice job.”
But the player most likely to relieve scoring pressure from Pries is junior Addie Baker, who recently transferred from Adams Central and whose eligibility was approved by the IHSAA this week. She averaged 6.8 points and 4.5 rebounds last year for the Jets. She may be the inside presence the Starfires needed.
Senior Emmerson Smith can put points on the board too. Kreiger calls her “a sneaky kind of scorer” who can hit the three as well as drive. Junior Bekah Patterson played as a freshman but sat out last year. Kreiger sees her getting significant varsity minutes.
Kreiger, heading into his 40th season as a head coach, has been around the block a few times, and he’s navigated that block pretty well, to put it mildly. He has 616 career wins, fifth on the all-time Indiana list and second among active coaches. He knows how to adapt his strategy to his personnel. That means this year, despite his fondness for pressing, the lack of depth on his team will prevent using that strategy very much. “I would like to press,” he said. “but I think this is not a pressing team by my standards, so we will probably have to settle in more to the half-court game.”
Pries is not only Kreiger’s top offensive threat; she’s also a tenacious defender, capable of shutting down the opponent’s best player. If she gets enough help from her teammates—and Kreiger thinks she will—the Starfires’ half-court pressure could be one of their strengths.
Kreiger pegs defending champion Jay County, despite graduating all-stater Renna Schwieterman, as a favorite for the ACAC title again, along with Woodlan, last season’s runner-up. South Adams tied Heritage for third with a 3-3 conference record.
The Starfires will compete in the 2A Bluffton Sectional, where defending champion Bishop Luers is the heavy favorite. The Knights, led by the return of leading scorer and rebounder Addie Shank, had no seniors last year.
South Adams will open the season on the road, taking on the state’s sixth-ranked 2A team, the Eastbrook Panthers, on Saturday, November 4. Since the Starfires will not have a JV team, the game will start earlier than usual, at 6:30 P.M.
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