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By SETH STASKEY
BELLAIRE -- Bubba Kapral has patrolled the sideline at St. John Central for the past 23 seasons.
He's won more than 300 games, a district title and eight Ohio Valley Athletic Conference championships.
As he prepares his 24th campaign at his alma mater, Kapral and long-time assistant Dr. Jerry Liberatore have simply gone back to the basics.
That's the necessary plan when you have a roster of just eight players, including five of whom are newcomers to the program.
"Numbers are an issue," Kapral said. "We had 11 players last year. Six have graduated, two (transferred), so we started back with a hub of three."
The good news for the Fighting Irish is that those three returnees were all starters last year. After that, however, the Irish are green … in terms of experience.
"We're going to start a junior who has never played basketball before and our sixth person will one who hasn't played since seventh grade," Kapral said. "Experience and basketball IQ, or lack thereof, are an issue."
With those concerns, the Irish have made especially good use of their pre-season scrimmages, taking part in four, which is one less than the maximum allowed by OHSAA rules.
"We opened with a handful in Beallsville (last Friday) and we have Linsly, which is always formidable, early on," Kapral said. "The scrimmages mean a lot when you only have eight players and they're wet behind their ears. It's tough to get a lot out of (a practice) when you have so few players. We've brought in some people to practice with us, but scrimmages are key."
As a program, the Irish lead all OVAC schools with 15 conference titles. Kapral won't put any sort of win total or expectation on this team. Quite simply, the objective is steady improvement.
"We just want to get better every day," Kapral said. "We did better in some of our scrimmages than I actually expected. But, I am not going to put an expectation on a win total. We simply hope to be a solid team by year's end."
With so few players on the team, the Irish are making a philosophical change to their defensive approach. In the majority of the seasons in which Kapral has been in charge, the Irish have been an up-and-down, baseline-to-baseline pressing team.
However, the Irish are going to be forced to back off that to a degree and be more selective when it chooses to turn up the heat.
"We always used to like to run and press, but that goes out the window," Kapral said. "We're not real guard oriented to begin with and if you get foul issues, going deep into our bench is a concern."
The Irish expect to be able to score the ball well enough, but Kapral is concerned with ball handling. Senior Alyssa Busack (5-foot-5) is set to take over the point guard duties. While he's encouraged by what he's seen from her, should she be in foul trouble or battle some sort of injury, the situation gets a bit foggy.
"Busack is a pure ball handler, but I am concerned that we have enough ball handlers," Kapral said. "I think we have enough size, but ball handling remains to be seen."
While Busack will serve as the floor general, junior Kaylin Nixon (5-10) is expected to be the Irish's go-to-scorer. She averaged 10.1 points and 7.9 rebounds per game last winter, while playing in the low post. She'll shift to the perimeter.
Senior Brooke Palmer (5-5) is an adept 3-point shooter and averaged five points a game last winter. Her role will definitely expand.
Freshman Jayden Lowe (5-8) has a tremendous upside, according to her coach. She'll play on the interior.
Junior Shay Horvath, who is out for the first time, is expected to get a starting job.
Junior Julie Schlanz (5-9) is out for the team for the first time since she was in seventh grade. Kapral called her "a blessing who will give some depth that we needed."
Rounding out the roster are freshmen Danielle Yeager (5-7) and Doni Ruza (5-7).