Lady Bobcats young, talented

Berryville Lady Bobcats coach Daniel Cornelison joked recently that Senior Night should be a simple affair for his team this season.

That’s because the Lady Bobcats don’t have any seniors. Berryville will open the season Tuesday night, Nov. 14, with three juniors and eight sophomores.

If so much youth is bad news for Berryville, the good news is that there is some experience on the roster.

Sophomore Kaylyn Smith and junior Taelor Tomlinson both started as freshmen although both have missed time because of injury.

Tomlinson returned late last season from a torn ACL and Cornelison said last week she should be fully cleared to play without a brace before the end of the year. Smith suffered an arm injury during summer practice but has been cleared to play.

Tomlinson is an effective three-point shooter and aggressive defender, while Smith is a solid ball-handler and shooter who can attack the basket.

The Lady Bobcats also have another returning starter in junior Kynadee Hopper, who played exceptionally well late last season. Add to that a group of sophomores moving up from a junior high team went 18-4 last season, and Cornelison said there is reason for optimism.

“It’s a good core group of girls returning,” Cornelison said. “With the younger girls, hopefully it’s a good mesh and we can compete, I’m hoping at a pretty high level at times. I’ve done this long enough to know that when you have young kids when you scratch your head. But there’ll be nights when I look out there and think, boy, this is kind of what I expected.” Among the sophomores is Ella Miller, a 6-footer who Cornelison said could give the Lady Bobcats an added dimension this season.

“We’ll have some size,” Cornelison said. “We’ll be able to defend the post a little bit and compete in that area a little bit where we haven’t been able to much the last couple of years. I’m looking forward to it.”