The Bastrop Lady Bears began practice Monday with their annual midnight madness.
As camp opened, there was one big question the Lady Bears had to answer: how do you replace an all-state outside hitter like Sydney Wilhelm?
While the above question would leave most coaches concerned, Bastrop head coach Christy Donaldson said she thinks her team will be stronger this year because they won’t have to rely so heavily on Wilhelm’s talent.
“Sydney was an amazing player, but we looked to her too much,” Donaldson said. “Even though we had other players, she was our team. If you shut her down, you shut down our team.
“This year, we have three or four players that are as capable of doing what she was doing. We will be a stronger team because we have more to go to than just Sydney.”
The Lady Bears have reason for optimism.
Returning are Hillari Raemsch, who developed into an outside threat by the end of 2009, and setter Rachel Clardy.
Also returning is Raven Barnett and Maci Lott, who played a limited role as a sophomore, but also showed a lot of growth toward the later part of last season.
Bastrop had 53 girls show up for the first of tryouts, which is smaller than last season due to the opening of Cedar Creek.
However, Donaldson said Tuesday that she had something for the first time that she has not in her two previous seasons.
“We have a lot more height this year,” she said. “We had a lot of kids, which is good, but we had a tough decision to make with cuts.”
Donaldson and her staff made cuts Wednesday morning to their varsity team.
Bastrop drops to Class 4A this year and there is optimism that this could be the year the Lady Bears get to the postseason for the first time in the program’s history.
However, Donaldson acknowledged that while there is no Westlake or Bowies on the schedule, the competition isn’t easy.
“In any district you are going to have tough competition,” she said. “Even though we don’t have Westlake and Bowie, we still have Elgin. We still have Hutto and Hendrickson… It’s not going to be easier as far as competition goes, however, as far as the mental part of it, that’s going to be very helpful because everything is fresh.”
Bastrop opens the season Tuesday at home against Anderson before making the annual trip to Fort Worth to participate in the Saginaw Tournament.