Two words go a long way to describing the girls 36th District – change and creativity.
There are significant changes at Newport Central Catholic and Bellevue. The Thoroughbreds will not have 2025 alumna and Northern Kentucky University freshman Caroline Eaglin, and Trevor Gould replaces now-boys coach Tommy Sorrell.
Newport will need lots of inventiveness because the Wildcats had only eight players as of Friday, while Dayton hopes to improve upon last season’s 5-2 finish.
There’s also a third C-word: consistency. District champion Highlands goes for its fourth straight title and 11th of the last 12.
Here’s a look at the district:
Highlands (22-9 in 2024-25)
It’s been nearly three decades since Bluebirds coach Jaime (Walz) Richey shredded high school defenses at Highlands – her 4,948 points was a state record (she was a varsity player in seventh grade) until 2016, and it included 3,872, placing her in the top 10 nationally.
Richey is not one to relive past glory.
“I think about how the game’s changed, since I was on the court and just how athletes nowadays have so much more, so many more opportunities to get better with trainers and things like that,” she said.
Highlands won’t have 6-foot-3 Marissa Green, who’s averaging 2.5 points and 2.0 rebounds at Illinois-Chicago.
“We don’t have a post player, first time in a long time,” Richey said. “So it’s going to be a different style. We’re looking to go a little bit faster, and we have a bunch of shooters, so we’re going to use that to our advantage.”
With Green gone, the Bluebirds will likely rely on senior Kaylee Mills and sophomore Maren Orme; both were Northern Kentucky Athletic Conference all-stars last year.
“Kaylee is one of the highest basketball IQ players I’ve coached,” Richey said. “She’s a point guard that can handle the ball and distribute the ball, and she controls the game a lot, but also is a very good shooter. And Maren Orme, leading returning scorer (10.8 points), she’s a quick guard that can take you off the dribble, but also can make the 3-point shot.”
Richey said senior Katie Bucher could also be a breakout player. “She’s a really good defender. she’s a hustler,” she said.
Newport Central Catholic (16-17 in 2024-25)
Thoroughbreds coach Trevor Steiner is sick of hearing his team is rebuilding.
“What I’ve come to tell them is, to classify this purely as a rebuild, I think, discredits the work that was put in last year by all our underclassmen,” Steiner said. “A pure rebuild from my perspective means to start from square one, and the work that those girls put in last year to start, to really learn the game and learn what our program is supposed to be about and what we expect of them, I think that would be shortchanging the work they put in to think that we’re truly starting square one.”
Steiner likes to call this season a “remodel.”
“Every single girl in our program is playing a different role from last year,” Steiner said.
Look for NewCath to play with what Steiner called “a little more fierceness” this season.
“And over the summer, we learned that we can can still be a very good offensive transition basketball team,” Steiner said. “ We’re currently really working right now on our ability to play the pace of basketball; we need to be able to play in the half-court to effectively and efficiently score the ball as well.”
Junior point guard Brooklyn Cole averaged 5.4 points and 3.0 rebounds last season.
“Brooklyn Cole started all but two games last year,” Steiner said. “She is a force defensively, and I think she showed that in some pretty high-profile matchups last season. I’m definitely expecting her to continue and show that she really is one of the best, one of the better on-ball defenders in the region.”
Junior guard Kendall Thompson returns after missing most of last season with a foot injury, and junior Grace Mumper is back after skipping her sophomore season.
Bellevue (18-13 last season)
You don’t have to tell Tigers coach Trevor Gould there’ll be a lot of changes – seven seniors graduated, and Tommy Sorrell is now coaching Bellevue’s boys.
“As a basketball program or as a team, we are concentrating on teaching,” Gould said. The staff is teaching the girls how to play basketball. They graduated seven seniors; six of them were the top scorers.”
When Gould says teaching, he’s not talking about basic skills like dribbling or shooting.
“I don’t really want to say philosophy, but language, terminology, teaching, spacing on the floor, a competitive level,” Gould said. “… Just trying to get them to compete and understand what competing every minute of the clock means on defense, on offense, boxing out.”
The more Gould thinks about it, the more he believes coaches and players are co-learners.
“So it’s one of those things with me being a first-year coach and not really knowing their skill levels and their background until this year and they’re not having much experience,” Gould said. “It’s kind of learning on the fly.”
Another obvious challenge is simply scoring – the top two returning scorers, seniors Chloe Meyers and Hayleigh Wight, scored just 118 points between them.
“Hayleigh’s a great guard flasher (on defense), but she can shoot the ball as well,” Gould said. “Chloe can do a little bit of everything. She can bring the ball up if we need to, but she’s a great post player, rebounder, and can shoot the ball.
“They have a lot of the same qualities, they just play a little bit different game.”
Newport (5-8 in 2024-25)
The Wildcats’ roster is thin – only eight players as of Thursday. Third-year coach Beau Menefee said low numbers was a problem last year, too.
“We didn’t have a full team at the beginning last year,” Menefee said. “Not enough girls were out for the team, and so we had to wait and make sure we had enough. And in addition, we didn’t have many upperclassmen at all. And so what we did is played a kind of a split schedule last year.”
Junior Amariana Cook is one player you might not know but should – she averaged 18.2 points last year.
“She’s our point guard, and she’s back,” Menefee said.
Janaya Ross and Jaelynn Staton lead Newport’s freshman class.
The Wildcats host Dayton to open their season Dec. 2.
“We’ve got an opportunity, even with the challenges we face with the numbers, we’ve got an opportunity to do well, I think, this year in the NKAC,” Menefee said, “because now, our enrollment numbers have been where we should have been really playing NKAC Division III) for the past few years.
“I think we’ve got as good a shot as anybody, as long as we stay healthy.”
Dayton (13-16 in 2024-25)
The Greendevils finished last season well – a 5-2 record.
“I don’t know that we will be capitalizing on that,” coach Laura Hall said. “We have a lot of players who didn’t come back this year. They said they needed a mental break.”
Dayton’s situation gets dicier from there.
So we do have four seniors this year, but two of them have never, or I should say, haven’t played, in the last five or six years,” Hall said. “But they wanted to play this year, so it’s all good. They’re really young and inexperienced.”
Seniors Emily Hall (2.2 points and 2.4 rebounds) and Cassidy Harris (1.1 and 1.2) are the leading returning scorers.