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Rockville has forward momentum

Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006

In each of the three years Mark Crichton has been at the helm of the Rockville girls basketball team, the Rams have steadily improved their record. In 2003 they won four games. In 2004 they won five games and last year they won eight games and reached the second round of playoffs. So naturally, Rockville has high expectations for 2006-2007.

‘‘Well, I certainly hope we don’t go back to four wins, that’s for sure,” Crichton said. ‘‘Over time these girls have bought into our system. They’ve been coming along together for the last three years. Now they saw they can win eight games, so this season, why not try and win 10? I think we’ll be competitive each and every night.”

Rockville (8-13 in 2005-2006) has been a young team the past couple seasons. The Rams were prone to concentration lapses. And they’d get discouraged easily. But they’ve worked through it. And, with Crichton’s encouragement and support, have grown sure of themselves on the court. They’ve matured and learned how to adjust to whatever is thrown at them. They can now rely on their own basketball knowledge rather than just a few set plays burned into their brains. In the past Rockville would fold if things weren’t going its way, but led by senior guards Meghan Johnsey and Anna Schmidt (6 assists per game), the Rams are grittier than ever.

‘‘What hindered us in the past was understanding how to handle the pressure,” Crichton said. ‘‘They got flustered easily. If we started off slow, we’d get into a rut and it was really hard to get out. The girls would get down on themselves. But I will attribute that to age. Now they’re ready to turn not so positives into positives.”

Rockville’s size certainly isn’t going to scare any opponents. At 5-foot-9, senior forward Mary Gorman is Rockville’s tallest player. She’ll take on most of the responsibilities under the basket. But Rockville will have a guard-oriented offense. It’ll rely on Schmidt’s ability to set her teammates up—last year she led the team in assists with six. She and Johnsey both have good scoring power. And the Rams will also look to last year’s leading scorer, junior guard Shaday Doyley, who averaged 10 points a game, for big numbers. Though the Rams won’t be physically as strong as most of their competitors, they do boast some speed. Rockville will look to use that effectively with a fast-paced, aggressive offense attack to keep their opponents guessing. And they’ll maintain a high-pressure defense in the hopes of stifling opposing offenses.

‘‘Our strength will definitely be our quickness,” Crichton said. ‘‘We’re going to get the ball and push it up the court. We don’t have a lot of size. We’ll be a guard-laden team. We’re going to stress our quickness, stay aggressive and attacking.”

Just a couple years ago Rockville’s goal would be to get a few wins and maybe win a playoff game. But the Rams are past that now. They’ve experienced what it’s like to win in the postseason. They’re not ready to settle for mediocrity this year. They’re ready to take the program further than it’s been in quite some time.

‘‘We’re hoping to continue to build on the strides we’ve taken until now, ‘‘ Crichton said. ‘‘As time goes on we want to keep improving. We don’t want to lose the fire. We want to maybe have a good enough season to get a top seed in the region tournament and control who we’ll play. And we want to go deeper into the playoffs. We’ve already won one game. We know what that feels like. So the logical thing, would be to take the next step.”