JEFFREY REINHART jreinhart@LNPnews.com
CONESTOGA VALLEY IS OUT TO DEFEND ITS SECTION 2 TITLE - AND THE BUCKS WILL HAVE TO DO IT WITHOUT THE LEADING SCORER IN THE HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM
It is easily the most-asked question in Section 2 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League.
How will Conestoga Valley fare without four-year starter Caitlyn Dillard, who took her school-record 1,718-career points along with her to graduation last spring?
“You don’t replace Caitlyn,” CV coach Jerry Beekler said. “You don’t even try and replace Caitlyn. What we want to do is let this team establish its own personality. I think we’ll be more balanced and we’ll have more options. That’s our goal.”
CV, the reigning Section 2 champ, certainly will miss Dillard’s point production and feisty defense.
But the Buckskins’ cupboard is hardly bare.
Returning starters Allison Bauer, Kristine Zeiset and Marqui Lyons are back in the fold, and Beekler’s bench is stockpiled with kids who do two important things: run like the wind and defend.
Without Dillard and her league-leading 16.6 points a game from last season, CV will count on its defensive depth and pressing and trapping schemes to produce offense at the other end.
“We’re all about high-pressure defense, trapping and causing turnovers,” said Bauer, who has 825 career points, and who should supplant Dillard as the Bucks’ go-to scorer, especially in crunch time.
“We hope those turnovers will lead to a lot of points,” she said.
In Zeiset, CV has an experienced point guard who has been through plenty of Section 2 and crossover-game wars. She can definitely distribute in transition.
And in Lyons, the Bucks have one of the most underrated low-post players in the league. She’s tough on the glass, gets tons of putbacks, and makes plenty of trips to the foul line.
So even without Dillard, CV will still cause major headaches.
“The bull’s-eye makes it a little more exciting,” Bauer said. “We’re OK with the pressure. We’ve had that pressure before. But we’re an experienced team, so we should be able to handle that. … I know we won the section title last year, but we sort of look at ourselves as the underdogs.
“Garden Spot and Solanco are looking strong … so there is definitely some pressure there.”
CV survived a pressure-packed stretch run last season. The Bucks had a seemingly safe four-game lead in the section race before dropping back-to-back games in the second-to-last week of regular-season play, and CV’s lead dwindled to just a game.
But the Bucks won back-to-back games to clinch the section, advance to the league playoffs and to the District 3 playoffs.
“We’d love to pull it off again,” Zeiset said, “and the big thing for us will be working together as a team. We’ll be more of a well-rounded team. We’re going to need more contributions and we’ll need to be more balanced.”
Balance could be the Bucks’ battle cry before it’s all said and done this season. And if CV can be balanced and get multiple points from multiple players, while putting the clamps on defensively, there is no reason to believe the Bucks can’t repeat.
“We can’t worry about bull’s-eyes,” Beekler said. “We’re worried about doing our thing and producing when it matters in game situations. You play games on the court, not on paper.”
On paper, and on the court, CV is still very much the team to beat in Section 2.
