Baker era begins ‘brick by brick’

EASLEY — You’ll often hear coaches say that they are rebuilding.

But for Ashley Baker, the recently-hired varsity girls basketball coach at Easley, it is another level of rebuilding in her first season. It didn’t help that several of the Green Wave basketball players (that were listed on the roster) just graduated - Meya McKinney, Rebeka Eron, Olivia Gramblin, Karson Bigham, Karsyn Waldrop and Anaya Sligh.

An even bigger loss, though, is that talented point-guard Ava Practor is going to play basketball in Greenville next season. Practor saw valuable minutes last season on the varsity level as just a freshman and would have been the starting point-guard this season. Plus, The Easley Progress Player of the Year (Gramblin) graduated. The 5-foot-11 Gramblin was a standout track athlete and she averaged 9.5 points and 5.6 rebounds a game last season in hoops.

“We’re really working on rebuilding,” said Baker, recently at the EHS summer basketball camp. “My main thing is relationships and building a culture, and that’s what I’m coming into do. By the end of the season, I want the girls to run through a wall for me and I would do the same for them. That’s the main thing - just building that trust and building relationships. To me, everything else will follow.”

At press time, there are only three players from that varsity roster who are planning to play next season - Kate Kelley (a rising junior), Kimbel Leach (rising senior) and Abbi Vite (rising senior).

“We’re really starting fresh and will have a whole new starting five,” said Baker. “My motto for this year is brick by brick, and that’s what we’re trying to do. The numbers are really low and we have to work on getting girls in here. I’m hoping I can bring life back into this program.”

This past season, the Easley varsity girls basketball team finished 10-17 overall.

Former EHS girls basketball coach, Ivan Raymond, will be the head coach at Mountain View Prep School. It is the inaugural season for the program and it is a charter school that will be competing in Class 3A next season. His longtime assistant, Vivian Nguyen, also stepped down from coaching girls hoops at EHS.

Raymond served five years as the head coach for the Green Wave varsity girls basketball program, with an overall record of 47-54. It took him a bit of time to get rolling, though, with an overall record of 4-20 in his first season.

Ending thought: It should be interesting to see what basketball players step up from the sophomore squad, which turned in a respectable 12-8 record last season. There are tons of varsity minutes available next season for underclassmen. Local basketball fans can only hope that there might be some younger version of Caitlin Clark (from Iowa) or Cameron Brink (from Stanford) ready to emerge from the lower ranks of the Green Wave girls basketball program.