East Butler girls basketball develops young group

COLUMBUS — East Butler girls basketball completed their summer teamwork on June 25 with the Scotus Central Catholic summer league tournament at the Columbus Fieldhouse.

Competing in the JV tournament, the Tigers lost in the first round to the Shamrocks. 

“(The summer) has gone really well. We are young, but we’re also kind of inexperienced. We played a lot of games this summer. I think we gained a lot of confidence. I really like this group,” East Butler head coach James Kriz said. “We’re very athletic. We’re putting some points up, which we’ve struggled with in the past. I think there’s a lot of upside once we get some of those young girls into the system, figuring the press out and getting the offenses down.”

East Butler only returns two players who played in every game last season in senior Morgan Havlovic and junior Lillie Kriz.

The Tigers are seeking to usher in a young group after they graduated four of their top six scorers.

“Just learn how to play with each other and get experience. We’re going to rely on for sure two freshmen a lot, maybe three freshmen that are going to play a lot of minutes,” James said. “We’ve got a senior that missed last year that’s going to be coming back. We just need those girls to play together. We need to get five, six, seven girls that know what we’re doing. That was the objective this summer is to learn to play together.”

Havlovic finished second on the team with 5.9 points per game last season to go with 6.7 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game.

“I think it’s gone really well. We’ve won quite a few games this year. We’re really inexperienced coming back, but I think I’ve seen a lot of confidence grow over the summer,” Havlovic said. “As a senior, I really hope my senior season to be really good and I think we do have a really good season. I think we will win games down the road.”

Havlovic, along with fellow senior Maddie Marsh, will be the lone seniors on the roster in the winter. Marsh only played nine games before suffering a season-ending injury.

Both are embracing a larger leadership role.

“It has been kind of tough because I miss my seniors from last year, but stepping into the role has been great,” Havlovic said. “We’ve had some great freshmen step up and my other senior Maddie (Marsh) … she has really stepped up with me. Having Lillie by my side helping the younger girls is really good.”

Lillie averaged 5.7 points and 6.9 rebounds per game last season. The junior recorded three double-doubles in her first varsity season.

“This year I have much more confidence,” Lillie said. “I just want to be able to improve with working with my teammates and reading the floor and help people around me. I feel like I should be a better leader.”

Lillie said she hopes the younger players take away confidence from the summer.

“The younger girls, no one really knew any of our offenses or anything like that,” Lillie said. “They really just grew to know and understand working together.”

East Butler finished the summer attending four team camps at Centennial, Humphrey/Lindsay Holy Family, Tekamah-Herman and Concordia University.

“I hope they gained confidence,” James said. “I hope they gained confidence in their teammates and I hope some of those younger, more inexperienced kids gained some confidence and realize they can play because we’re going to need them to when November rolls around.”