Hauser’s Abby Manley makes a move against Brown County Nov. 12, 2024, at Hauser.
The Republic file photo
Hauser is looking to make the next step forward this girls basketball season.
Kyle Shipp, who also is the Jets athletics director, begins his fourth year leading the girls basketball team. They hope to improve on the 10-14 record from last year.
Hauser hasn’t won more than 10 games in a season since the 2016-17 campaign when they went 14-9 and won the Mid-Hoosier Conference title.
“I think you really don’t see growth throughout the program until about Year 4, and that is where we’re at,” Shipp said. “I think we have the ability to take another step forward. Our practices have been crisp. We have really good tempo. We’re working on the finer details of the game and really starting to hone in on what we would like to do early in the season and hopefully build upon that throughout the season and really, really focusing on playing our best basketball toward the end of the year.”
Shipp brings back a lot of varsity experience in 5-foot-9 senior Braelyn Williams, 5-6 senior Chloie Phelps, 5-10 junior June Berkenstock, 5-4 junior Kennedy Konradi and 5-7 junior Abby Manley, all of which were full-time or part-time starters last year.
Also looking to be in the rotation this season are 5-6 junior Leah Manley, 5-10 sophomore Nevah Paetzel, 5-7 sophomore Abby Stacey, 5-7 sophomore Ava Dempsey and 5-9 sophomore Peyton Norris, 5-6 freshman Hayden Dickey, 5-6 freshman Lylah Konradi and 5-7 freshman Ollyvea Fiesbeck, who moved from Southwestern (Shelby).
“Obviously, you kind of lean on your seniors to be the leaders on your team. I don’t think anything is going to be new to them. They’ve been within the program for four years, so you rely on them heavily,” Shipp said. “We also have a very good junior class, and so we’ll have to rely on those girls to not only be leaders on the court, but off the court, as well.”
The Jets will open the season hosting Edinburgh a non-conference game Friday. The teams will play the conference game Dec. 19 during a girls-boys basketball doubleheader.
Hauser was supposed to play Trinity Lutheran Saturday, but that game was postponed to Jan. 10 due to the Cougars playing in the Class A volleyball state title game. The Jets will instead host Mooresville Christian Saturday night.
Hauser will once again host a holiday tournament that takes place Dec. 26-27. It will include local schools such as Columbus East and South Decatur. The other teams in the tournament are Waldron, Greenwood Christian Academy, Southwestern (Hanover), Henryville and Crawford County.
“You’re always trying to balance conference opponents and non-conference opponents in a season. You’re trying to put different teams in different slots, and we feel like we have a really nice balanced schedule,” Shipp said. “With the MHC being the core of it, those quality teams that you play are essential to our growth, and for the non-conference, we kind of branched our wings out a little bit and tried playing some people at different times just to get a different look. We’re going to be traveling quite a bit. We will be outside of our realm a little having those non-conference games.”
