SECTION 4 GIRLS' BASKETBALL: AFTER A SECTION TITLE A YEAR AGO THE EXPRESS ARE BACK AT WORK PREPARING FOR SEASON (24 PHOTOS) (2024-11-19)

By Brian Fees
Southern Tier Sports Report
ELMIRA — Coming off a sectional championship a year ago the Elmira girls’ basketball team is back to work preparing for a new season.

“We are excited,” Elmira coach A’Don Allen said. “We hit a major accomplishment last year winning a sectional championship. That was our goal, and we hit that. But, last year is last year, and new team, new people. We are excited. We have a lot of work we have got to do. Three weeks will be here really, really soon so the biggest thing we are excited about is getting back to work. We had really good turnout for preseason stuff. Lot of work to get done. But, we still have a lot of work to do.”

The team returns some talented players, including Mariah Matthias. Matthias was the co-player of the year in the class for Section 4 and she’s the school record holder for rebounds in a game and a season. She had planned to go to prep school, before staying at Elmira.

“It’s definitely a boost anytime you can return the reigning player of the year in the section, so that’s a good thing,” Allen said. “She has worked hard as usual to get better. She played basketball in a couple different leagues and she has really, really done a lot of things. We are excited about her, we are exited about some kids ready to take the next step. Mya Smith played a lot this summer. We feel like she’s ready to take the next step. You have kids like Alivia Woodruff who is in her sixth year for her in the program and w are excited for her maturity and her growth over the summer.


“Ashaya Wallace has been steady for us. Addison Taft, we feel like she is ready to take the step from being kind of a support person last season to an up front player. We are excited. We have got a group of kids who have done a lot of work and we are anxious to see how we put it all together.”

One player the team lost from last year’s team is Ellie Clearwater, who is now at Geneseo. She was the other co-player of the year in the section a year ago.

“Bigger than anything that’s the biggest thing we are going to miss with Ellie is leadership,” Allen said. “And, don’t get me wrong, from a basketball perspective she made big shots, she wasn’t afraid to take big shots, but she was one of the best leaders we have ever had here and that’s not easy to replicate. So, that’s the big thing we are looking for early in the season is finding out who is going to be our leaders and who is going to guide our team.”

Some of the players on the team, like Wallace and Taft, were leaders on the soccer team this fall and Allen thinks that leadership is something that may translate to basketball.

“That’s what we like,” Allen said. “Sunny (Taft) and Ashaya were big pieces to another successful year for soccer and their leadership is big there. So, we think they are ready to move that over. Somebody like Alivia Woodruff, she is so far really shown some really good leadership on how she is doing things on and off the court. She’s done a really good job with that.”
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PHOTOS BY BRIAN FEES

PHOTO GALLERY FROM PRACTICE:


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