The New Franklin Lady Bulldogs return their leading scorer from a year ago and welcome a freshman with big expectations.

New Franklin finished 14-13 overall last year and placed second in its own tournament. This year coach Morgan Grosse hopes to add outside shooting to an already solid inside game to augment the win column.

After leading the team in scoring last season with 12 points per game, Carly Dorson returns to the guard position, and will also see some minutes at the post. At 5’9, Dorson also led the team with 7.2 rebounds a season ago.

Dorson will be joined in the starting lineup by freshman Lilly Chitwood, who is expected to have a bright future. Grosse said Chitwood, who plays off-season ball on a traveling team, has had no trouble so far adjusting to the high school game.

“She’ll be a starter,” Grosse said. “She can shoot decently well. But she just works hard. She’s one of those kids who would run through a brick wall. She gets easy stuff off of steals, and she gets a lot of points just off of hard work. She’s a good athlete. She does all of the above for us. She brings a spark for us, and some consistency.

“Starting early, she fits right in. She doesn’t look like a freshman.”

Grosse said she hopes that having Chitwood at point guard will free up Dorson’s game. She also expects the two cousins to feed off of one another.

“The past couple of years, there have been quite a few games where [Dorson has] had to take the team on her back. I’m hoping this year it’s a little more relaxed, and some things are a little more open for her,” Grosse said.

Also expected to be a consistent starter is Kebrea Fair, who as a freshman last year, averaged 4.5 points and 4.7 rebounds per game. 

Apart from those three starters, Grosse said the other two spots in the opening lineup will likely change night to night, depending on New Franklin’s opponent. Other possible starters include senior forwards Kelsi Fair, who averaged 3.6 points and 4.7 boards last year, and Emma Rice, who had 3.4 points and 5.4 rebounds a night last season.

Sophomore Brooklynn Brown is expected to contribute big minutes off the bench.

“We love to run and gun and get easy layups. At the same time, I’d like to see a little more outside shooting, so it opens up our bigs inside,” Grosse explained about this year’s offensive strategy. “We’ve always been a score-in-the-paint type of team. People don’t guard us from the outside. I’m hoping this year we have a little more confidence to shoot from the outside.”

Defensively, New Franklin, like so many other mid-Missouri teams, plans to run a high-intensity press to force transition scoring opportunities.

New Franklin took the floor last week in a jamboree at home and won all three games. On Saturday, the Lady Bulldogs opened the season with a 47-42 victory over La Plata on the road (see story on Page 7). On Tuesday, they were slated to host Salisbury for their home opener after the Advertiser went to press.

Next week, New Franklin will enter the historic Glasgow Tournament as the second seed. The Lady Bulldogs will open tournament play at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 29, against seventh-seeded Westran.

Grosse said her team’s success this season will largely depend on how well the girls play before the Christmas break. “I keep telling them we need to get out to a good start, because I think we could do something really special this year. The first six games we get in before Christmas really add up and show how we’ll play for the new year.”