New Hauser girls basketball coach Chad Evans didn’t waste any time introducing his team to a new style of play during the June period when coaches are permitted to work with their players.

Evans, a former assistant at Greensburg and Southwestern (Shelby), is speeding up the pace.

“We’re completely changing our defensive and offensive philosophies,” Evans said. “They’ve actually responded very well to the way we’re going to be playing defensively. Offensively, they like it. We’re trying to be as fast as we can. With the personnel we have, I think they’ll respond very well to it.”

The defense will be a variation of a man-to-man, called “pack-line defense” that a lot of colleges run. Several college teams, including reigning national champion Virginia, use it, and Evans has talked to Louisville coach Chris Mack and Michigan State coach Tom Izzo about it at clinics.

“With the onset of probably in the next four or five years, a shot clock coming in, the pack-line defense is going to be beneficial,” Evans said. “It forces you to shoot jump shots and not layups. They’ve bought into it 100 percent, and they’re enjoying it.”

The past 19 years, the Jets have given up 48.8 points a game. Evans said that needs to improve, so his practices have been about 80 percent defense and 20 percent offense.

Hauser returns four starters in incoming seniors Bree Hadley, Mel Hasler and Shelby Fugate and incoming junior Hannah Johnson. Incoming seniors Leah Joyce and Nichole Paetzel and incoming sophomores Aunaka Wasil and Morgan Bottoms also are playing with next year’s varsity, along with a couple of freshmen.

“We have some pretty good younger kids that will probably be contributing,” Evans said.

The Jets did not play any games in June, but they practiced for about two hours each Tuesday and Thursday night.

“I think it’s going to be exciting for Hauser,” Evans said. “They’re really going to enjoy watching these girls play and their style.”

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This is the first of six stories this week on how the summer basketball seasons went for Bartholomew County schools.

Today: Hauser girls

Tuesday: Columbus East girls

Wednesday: Columbus North girls

Thursday: Hauser boys

Friday: Columbus East boys

Saturday: Columbus North boys

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Thirteen individuals and one organization have been selected for the first class of the Columbus Indiana Slow Pitch Softball Hall of Fame.

The main list of inductees include Ray Anderson, Phil Pickens, Maria Stack, Ed Stillinger, Dewey Whitis, Russell Wilhoit and Bobby Wissman.

Columbus Parks & Recreation is a Lifetime Achievement Award inductee, along with Rod Eliot and Doug Webb.

Special inductees are Jim Wells, the late Lou Giovanini, Rob Roop and Fred Lawson. Roop and Lawson were inducted into the Indiana Softball Hall of Fame in March.

Beach volleyball

FIVB World Championships, noon (NBCSN)

MLB

Royals at Blue Jays, 1 p.m. (MLB)

Cubs at Pirates, 7 p.m. (ESPN)

Giants at Padres or Angels at Rangers, 10 p.m. (MLB)

NBA

NBA Summer League: TBA, 9 p.m. (ESPN2)

Tennis

Wimbledon: Day 1, first round, 6 and 11 a.m. (ESPN)

Wimbledon: Day 2, first round, 6 a.m. Tuesday (ESPN)

Following her graduation from Columbus East in 2016, Hannah Gregory wanted to apply for the Universal Cheerleaders Association, but with a busy academic schedule, she had to put it on hold.

In 2017, Gregory got in touch with some of her former coaches to assist her in getting into the UCA.

Being a cheerleader for a total of 14 years, getting out of cheerleading altogether was not an option for Gregory. She tried out for the program, and the rest is history.

Gregory now is in her third summer with the UCA program. She is the head instructor of nearly a dozen cheerleading camps that she conducts, one of which was last week at Central Middle School.

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The UCA also helps Gregory share her passion of cheerleading to the next generation of youth in Columbus and the surrounding communities.

“I never thought I’d be here, but now that I am, it is just great,” Gregory said. “Cheerleading is not only a team sport, and not only are you cheering your school on, I also think it is a huge thing with life lessons. Cheerleading taught me so many life lessons, and that’s what I really like to bring into camp. It’s a multitude of things. I don’t think there is a single life lesson you can’t learn from cheerleading, so it means a lot to me to be able to have this job and be able to come back in and just give them a fraction of what I learned.”

The UCA was founded in 1974 by Jeff Webb to provide the highest quality educational training for cheerleaders with the goal of incorporating high-level skills with traditional crowd leading. It is the largest cheerleading camp company in the world and trains more than 180,000 cheerleaders every summer at more than 3,200 sessions across the country. Some of their top competition championships are held at the Walt Disney World Resort and nationally televised across the ESPN Networks and CBS Sports.

Gregory was a cheerleader for Olympians for three years. Following high school, she went to Ivy Tech and earned her Associate’s Degree in Liberal Arts and Science in 2017.

Gregory then transferred her credits to Hanover College to complete her final two years to earn a B.A. in Political Science in 2019.

In addition to being a cheerleader at East for three years, Gregory cheered at Hanover in her first year, and she was also a part of Hanover’s track and field team, as well. She invested a lot of time in track and didn’t cheer her final year at Hanover.

Gregory mostly sticks to the Midwest when she is conducting her camps, but also has the potential to conduct camps across the Northeast, which could push her total to 20 camps this summer.

Just like any young adult fresh out of college, Gregory isn’t sure if this will be her final summer of conducting camps. She is in the middle of applying to Officer Candidate School through the Marine Corps. If she gets accepted, she says that will be her next adventure for a while, which will put her cheerleading on hold. If that falls through, she says she’ll probably apply to grad school, which might give her some time to continue with cheerleading.

Gregory has one message to any young cheerleaders that might want to be in her shoes one day.

“Even if you are unsure of where you are at right now, keep working hard and keep your eyes on your goals and on your future goals,” Gregory said. “I believe if you try hard enough, work hard enough, you can achieve almost anything. I never though I’d be here, and it’s just been crazy. It’s a huge family here (at UCA). Everybody is there for everyone.”

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Name: Hannah Gregory

Age: 21

High school: Columbus East

Colleges: Ivy Tech, Hanover

Occupation: Instructor for Universal Cheerleaders Association

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