Freshman Tayla Carson will provide depth in the backcourt for McDowell this season. Carson has been sidelined by an injury in the preseason.
There isn’t a ton of experience in the frontcourt once you get past Boyce and the starters.
Sophomore Abby McMahan will be a likely first option off the bench along with junior Aubrey Harris and freshman Brooklyn Thompson providing depth. Harris is the lone junior on the varsity roster.
The last player on the varsity is Maribel Kunzel, a German exchange student. Kunzel is learning a lot about the game while visiting McDowell and she could provide depth at the post.
Replacing the production of Parkins isn’t the only bit of adversity that Coach Kinninger’s team is currently facing, the Lady Titans and all high school teams in the state are fighting the adversity of playing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Impacts include the overlapping schedules between the current volleyball season and basketball, which have resulted in limiting the availability of some players. There is also the compacted, 13-game schedule with all but one contest being inside the Northwestern 3A/4A.
“It’s been a strange start to the season, which is something we all knew would be the case coming in,” said Kinninger. “Because of either quarantine, or injuries or kids playing other sports, there have been days in which I’ve had only four or five kids for a practice. Having most of the kids together at once has been at a premium and I cannot think of a time yet in which the entire roster was on the floor. But with everything that’s going on around us, the kids are excited just to be here and have the opportunity to play and that’s something that honestly we didn’t know for sure was going to happen until the week before practices started. Everyone is happy to be here.”
