A few years ago, Roger Bane told some people around Medora High School that if the girls basketball coaching job opened up, he would be interested.

Medora had a team in 2019-20, but then interest fell off and the school did not have a girls team the past two seasons.

This past fall, some girls expressed interest in playing, and the program was revived.

Bane, former boys head coach at Medora and an assistant girls coach at Brownstown Central, is heading up the program and is working with eight girls.

“I’d missed it,” he said. “I’d basically coached my whole life. I figured if we could get a group of girls together who were willing to work that I’d be more than willing to coach.”

There aren’t any seniors on the roster.

Two of the juniors, Jenna Bowers and Aaralyn Hackney, played on the boys team the past two years.

Bowers started some varsity games, and Hackney played on the junior varsity.

“I’m looking for everything from them,” Bane said. “They’re going to have to take a bulk of the pressure off everybody else. They’re the ball handlers, they’re the shooters and they’re the kids that can drive the ball to the basket. We’re working on offense to get them at least a touch every time we come down the floor, and then the other girls, hopefully as the season goes on, they’ll improve and be able to get more active in our offense.”

He said the Hornets will run a motion offense.

“We’re going to do a lot of cutting. We’re going to do a lot of dribble drive with those two,” he said. “Obviously, we’ll set our back screens and we’ll be flashing weak side low. We’re going to move the ball. We’re going to run a motion offense and get the ball moving around and try to get the defense off-balance and take advantage of that with our two juniors.”

Sophomores are Haylee Sons and Brelee Underwood, and the freshmen are Greer Brown, Heavenlee Brown, Madison Reece and Isabelle Spence.

Bane said he will have the Hornets fast break when they have an opportunity.

“We’re not super fast except for the two juniors. If we get the ball into their hands, we will run it down the floor,” he said. “Basically, we’re going to bring it down the floor and hopefully get that offense going as soon as we cross half-court and try to catch the defense off-guard.”

Bane said on defense, you can look for a lot of zone.

“We’ll probably do mainly zone just because of the experience factor. I’ve got four freshmen, two sophomores and the two juniors. I’ve got one more junior that may play,” Bane said.

“I think we’ll be pretty strong rebounding,” he said. “The girls aren’t afraid to use their bodies. We’ve been working on that, trying to get positioning, trying to stay between our person and the basket. Again, it’s a work in progress. We’re fairly young. They’re going to have some growing pains, those younger kids, and hopefully, my veteran players will have the patience to bring them along.”

The Hornets open tomorrow at home against Anderson Prep Academy.

Bane said the later start to the season enabled the girls to get in better physical shape.

“The teams we have on our schedule, we have some opportunities to win some games. I feel confident with the competition that we’re playing that we should be able to get some wins,” he said. “I’m not going to predict how many but hopefully a lot more than in the past. I feel like we’re moving in the right direction. I think the experience Jenna and Aaralyn had with the boys is going to be our main strength.”

He’s hoping they can help these other girls throughout the early part of the schedule.

“We want to be better at the end,” he said. “Jenna and Aaralyn throw the ball pretty hard because of who they have been playing with. These other girls are figuring out there is another level.”