November 17, 2019
By: Dwayne Page
The DCHS Tiger and Lady Tiger basketball teams will launch their 2019-20 season this week with Hall of Fame matchups at Van Buren County Tuesday night and at home against Pickett County Saturday night.
Action begins at 6:00 p.m. each night starting with the girls game.
WJLE will have LIVE coverage Tuesday night with the Voice of the Tigers and Lady Tigers John Pryor. Listen for Tiger Talk prior to tip off at 5:30 p.m. featuring Coaches Danny Fish and John Sanders and players Kenzie France, Mya Ruch, Megan Walker, Emme Colwell, Michael Elswick, Dakota White, and Dallas Cook.
(View video interview of Coach Danny Fish here).
DCHS Lady Tiger Coach Danny Fish from dwayne page on Vimeo.
The Lady Tigers are hoping to duplicate the success of last year’s team which made it to the quarterfinals of the state tournament.
Although this year’s team will be without the leadership of Lydia Brown, Maddison Parsley, and Joni Robinson, who all graduated last year, Coach Danny Fish said he expects others to fill the void, especially his four seniors Mya Ruch, Megan Walker, Kenzie France, and Emme Colwell.
Last year Colwell and Freshman Kadee Ferrell were named to the 1st Team-All Region. Ferrell was also on the All-District 2nd Team and she made the All-Freshmen Team. Colwell was named to the 3rd Team All-District and Ruch made the All-Defensive Team.
“Emme and Mya have started for four years now. Emme’s role will stay about the same for us to try and score and defend but Mya’s role will have to change a little bit. The past couple of years she has been a facilitator. This year we are going to ask her to score more so we are hoping she will accept the challenge and step up and replace some of those points scored by Lydia last year,” said Coach Fish.
“Kenzie had a good year last year. She is very enthusiastic and an emotional player. She brings that edge for us,” he continued.
“Megan Walker is back. She was out the entire season last year with an injury. She has had a really good summer and strong fall so we expect her to be full throttle for the year”.
I am anxious to see if Kadee is going to come back and have another spectacular year as a sophomore. She was unbelievable as a freshman”.
“Megan Cantrell, a junior this year can really shoot it. I believe she is going to be able to come in and find her role for the team”.
“We have Grace Griffin coming off the bench. She is a stretch four player who can really shoot the rock. I am interested to see how she is going to do,” said Coach Fish.
Unfortunately, the Lady Tigers will be without the services of Kennedy Agee, who has again torn an ACL and will be sidelined for the season.
“We are missing Kennedy. She tore her ACL last year but came back and had a really great rehab but in practice last week she tore it again. I feel really bad for her and the team. We were expecting a lot from her but someone else will have to step up,” Coach Fish said.
“We have been working hard and I am excited to watch the kids play. Hopefully defense will be the strength of the team. I pride myself on being a defensive coach. Offensively we will introduce some different things because we have different personnel this year. In the past we have been mostly guard oriented. This year we have a lot of big bodies so we will have to change the pace in which we play and maybe change some things we try to do in our motion. Defensively I think we can be locked down in half court which is good. Things I see that may give us some issues are that we really have to rebound. We are a little bit bigger than last year but we still have no six footers in our lineup so we are really going to have to rebound. I hope we can develop some chemistry and continuity on offense to push ourselves up to 50-60 points per game. If we can get to that 60 point threshold I see us being very good,” said Coach Fish.
WJLE will have a feature on the Tigers with a video interview of Coach John Sanders in a separate story Monday.
The 2019-20 DCHS Basketball Schedule is as follows:
(*) Denotes District Games
Tuesday, November 19: Van Buren County (Hall of Fame)- Away 6 p.m.
Saturday, November 23: Pickett County (Hall of Fame)- Home 6 p.m.
Monday, November 25: Warren County-Home 6 p.m.
Tuesday, November 26: White County-Away 6 p.m.
Friday, November 29: Red Boiling Springs-Home 6 p.m.
Friday, December 6: York Institute*-Home 6 p.m.
Tuesday, December 10: Livingston Academy*-Home 6 p.m.
Friday, December 13: Watertown*- Away 6 p.m.
Saturday, December 14: Cookeville- Away 6 p.m.
Tuesday, December 17: Warren County-Away 6 p.m.
Thursday, December 19: Watertown Boys Christmas Tournament- 8:30 p.m.
Friday, December 20: Watertown Boys Christmas Tournament- Watertown TBA
Saturday, December 21: Watertown Boys Christmas Tournament-Watertown TBA
Friday, December 27: Daytona Beach Shootout (Girls)-Daytona Beach, Florida TBA
Saturday, December 28: Daytona Beach Shootout (Girls)-Daytona Beach, Florida TBA
Monday, December 30: Daytona Beach Shootout (Girls)-Daytona Beach, Florida TBA
Saturday, January 4: Cookeville- Home 6 p.m.
Tuesday, January 7: White County- Home 6 p.m.
Friday, January 10: Cannon County*-Home 6 p.m.
Tuesday, January 14: Upperman*-Away 6 p.m.
Friday, January 17: Macon County*-Home 6 p.m.
Saturday, January 18: Red Boiling Springs- Away 6 p.m.
Tuesday, January 21: Smith County*-Home 6 p.m.
Friday, January 24: York Institute*-Away 6 p.m.
Tuesday, January 28: Livingston Academy*-Away 6 p.m.
Friday, January 31: Watertown*-Home 6 p.m.
Tuesday, February 4: Cannon County- Away 6 p.m.
Friday, February 7: Upperman- Home 6 p.m..
Tuesday, February 11: Macon County*-Away 6 p.m.
Thursday, February 13: Smith County*-Away 6 p.m.