Lady Spartans excited about transition to up-tempo style

Mountain Brook High School girls basketball coach Mark Cornelius is excited about the prospect of changing things up.

“We’re going to be a little different kind of team this year than what we’ve been. We have a lot more depth overall. We have 13 girls on the varsity right now, and to be honest with you, all 13 can play and contribute,” he said.

That depth coupled with the fact the Lady Spartans’ roster is guard-heavy will allow Mountain Brook to push the pace more this season.

“That’s going to really help us, as far as being able to shoot from the perimeter especially. We have eight girls that can really shoot the ball,” Cornelius said.

Sara Carr drew much of the attention from opposing defenses over the last several years, but with her eligibility now expired, the Lady Spartans are evolving into more of a four-out, one-in offensive style, one that allows Mountain Brook’s guards to space the floor with the threat of the three-point shot and ability to penetrate.

“It will allow us to spread the floor so much more,” Cornelius said. “Even our post players, at least a couple of them in particular, are able to step out and hit some shots. It’ll give us a lot more opportunities to either drive lanes or at least penetrate and kick.”

Along with that up-tempo offensive style, the Lady Spartans want to make the game a full-court one by employing a full-court press on defense from time to time. While coaching boys basketball, Cornelius was reluctant to press, but he said he feels there is a big advantage to being able to do so in the girls game.

He now has the depth to detonate that press more often.

“Our press is going to be one of our main focuses,” said senior Kate Bumgarner. “We like to play for a long time, be able to go really hard and really fast.”

Carr and Kathryn Wason have graduated, but their impact will still be felt on the court this fall, as the lessons and traits passed along to younger players will rise to the surface.

“We’ve both been on varsity for three years, and we’ve always gone with the flow, done what the older girls told us to do,” Carlee Dawkins said of her and Bumgarner. “Now that it’s our turn to kind of shine and show our leadership skills that we’ve developed, I think it’s going to be a really good year for us to be the role models for the younger girls.”

“We have some really good leadership as a group,” Cornelius said. “As a team as a whole, they get along really well, and I think everybody’s kind of moving in the same direction.”

Mountain Brook has had trouble getting past the regional semifinals the last few years, and the Lady Spartans are aiming to break through that wall this time around.

“One of the things that we talked about last year was doing some things in the offseason to try to get us to move forward a little bit more. We call it putting in the work,” Cornelius said.