Lady Rabbits to battle inexperience this season
The Lonoke Lady Jackrabbits return only one starter from last year’s squad that went 24-10 and qualified for the Class 4A State Tournament for the second year in a row. Senior guard Mia Brown averaged 10 points a game in 2018. She is the lone returning starter this season. “She averaged 10 points a game, but last year, I usually made her guard the other team’s best player,” third-year Lonoke coach Heath Swiney said. Swiney, who is 42-19 in two seasons at Lonoke, said his team will be inexperienced this season. “We are somewhat inexperienced,” he said. “We have two players coming off injuries, and you can expect to see a group of kids work hard, no matter what is going on. They will give their team and their school everything that they have.” The coach said Lonoke’s best inside player is junior Hannah Moseley. “She has the most experience of any of my post players,” Swiney said of Moseley, who is also a member of the Jackrabbits football team, “but we also have a ninth-grader, Kaleigh Thompson, who will be able to help us when she makes the adjustment to senior high basketball.” The two best outside players are Brown and senior Kaley Woodruff, the coach said. “We have two who are equal because they bring different things to the game,” Swiney said. “Mia Brown is a good 3-point shooter, and Kaley Woodruff is a great ball handler and sees the floor very well. She is coming back off an anterior-cruciate-ligament injury.” Swiney hopes to compete again this year but knows it will be different. “I told the kids all summer we could be very successful but that we were going to be a different team,” he said. “We lost five seniors last year; four of them were starters. These kids worked hard all summer and got much better every day this summer.” Swiney said his team’s strength is to “play hard and never take plays off.” Of course, his team’s inexperience is its weakness. Lonoke is going into a new conference this season with the restructuring of the Arkansas Activities Association going from seven classifications to six. The Lady Jackrabbits are members of the 4A-5 Conference with eStem, Forrest City, Little Rock McClellan, Little Rock Mills, Pulaski Academy, Pulaski Robinson, Stuttgart and Wynne. Swiney didn’t know how the conference would shape up this season. “We are gong into a new conference, so we will have to see,” he said. “Over the past several seasons, we have formed a rivalry with eStem.” Lonoke split four games with the Lady Mets last season. They split in the regular season. EStem beat Lonoke in the district tournament, but the Lady Jackrabbits returned the favor in the third-place game of the regional tournament. “I feel like we have a good group of kids,” Swiney said. “This year will be a fun year for all of us, but especially for the seniors.”