Preview: Murray wiping away bad memories

Published 11:28 pm Monday, November 26, 2007

Murray County girls basketball coach Traci Rankin winces a bit when she thinks or talks about it.

The Lady Indians finished the 2006-07 season with an 0-23 mark and lost every game by an average of 27.2 points. Nineteen times Murray scored fewer than 40 points.

“It was one of the hardest years I’ve ever had,” said Rankin, entering her second full season at the helm. “Nobody wants a season like I had last year. We’re going to have to bring our game and I’m going to stay with it — I love basketball, I love the girls and I love coaching at Murray County.”

Rankin is preaching positive thinking and forward momentum. Like other coaches at Murray, she wasn’t shedding any tears when it was announced Nov. 9 that the school would drop down to Class 4A starting in 2008.

Since Murray made the rugged climb to 5A in 2006, the varsity football, varsity girls and varsity boys basketball teams have gone a combined 10-56.

“It was great news,” Rankin said. “I hate it for our seniors, since one more time they’ll have to do all the traveling (to metro Atlanta) this year. But it’s a great thing for us. We’ve really missed playing the teams in our area.”

Murray’s girls haven’t won since a 43-31 victory over Ringgold in February 2006. But with returning seniors in Elyse Kendrick, Yuri Chavez and Warner Robins transfer Jamie Hamsley, Rankin believes the Lady Indians will be able to crack the win column more than once this season.

The 5-foot-8 Kendrick will assume scoring responsibilities at power forward, and she can also slide in as a shooting guard. Chavez should be a distributor at the guard position and Hamsley is a 6-footer — the tallest player on the team — with raw athleticism.

“We’re working Jamie back into basketball,” said Rankin. “She’s been focused on the National Guard and has already signed up, but she wanted to come out for basketball.”

Rankin also has a pair of 5-foot-10 forwards in senior Jennifer Bagley and sophomore Jenna Rogers. Junior guard Cayla Brock, sophomore Tember Marchant and senior guard Cayla Singleton also will be depended on for quality minutes, the coach added.

Murray has worked harder on its man-to-man defense and slowing down the opponent’s offense. Rankin has a simple philosophy that has been successful at all levels of basketball.

“Shake people up,” she said.

Rankin has tried to apply that philosophy on her own roster. With a 24-game losing streak, the Lady Indians can only improve, she said.

“The main thing is we want to be able to compete better than last year,” the coach said. “It was a learning experience for us, and now we want to compete and pull in some wins.

“After something like last season, you can do one of two things: Go back to the drawing board — which we’ve done — or lay down and die. We’re not going to lay down and die. We’re going to keep fighting to turn this around.”