Rochester girls basketball preview: Wilson, Hunter, J. Field among team leaders for Lady Zs

Val T.
13 hours ago
6 min read

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Two years ago, Aubrey Wilson, Brailyn Hunter and Jadyn Field were the freshmen on the Rochester girls basketball team, helping support a nucleus of juniors.

Now Audrey Bolinger, Rylee Clevenger and Ella McCarter have graduated, and Wilson, Hunter and Field are in the same spot where Bolinger, Clevenger and McCarter were two years ago – trying to pull a group of newcomers to continued success in the program as coach Joel Burrus begins his fourth season.

Rochester won 11 games in Burrus’ first season, 12 in his second and 16 games last year.

“Obviously, any time you’re bringing in young kids and graduating three special kids like we had with Ella, R.J. (Clevenger) and Bolinger, it’s a whole new group,” Burrus said. “Even though you got three back from last year, you’ve got to build this cohesiveness with this new group.”

Jayla Miller and Kyla Conley are the sophomores on the team. Freshman in the program include Adalyn Gonzalez, Ali Field, Hope Baugh, Lyla Bowers and Kyleigh Little.

“I thought that getting the incoming sophomores, Miller and Conley, and then obviously bringing all these freshmen along, we’re kind of back to where we were two years ago,” Burrus explained. “Our juniors will end up being fifth-year seniors, like we had with three three we just graduated. And then this freshman group obviously is probably the best group that we’ve had come through here depth-wise and probably with their potential as well. They had a really good season last year as an eighth grade group. Getting them ready – not all of them are going to see as much time on the varsity – to go and building a cohesiveness with Wilson, Field and Hunter was also a big thing.”

Wilson is in her third year as the point guard, and Burrus calls her the most vocal of the juniors. She has to be in order for the team to know which play Burrus wants to be run.

“We’ve talked a lot with her about maturity,” Burrus said. “Being mature on the floor, the moments where she gets frustrated and goes and clobbers somebody on a foul, we’ve all seen them. And she knows there’s an accountability thing there. I always tell her, ‘You’re no good to me on the bench. We need you on the floor.’ And she knows that. We’ve got to see some of that growth though to when something negative happens, she doesn’t let that affect her play from a standpoint of getting a foul or being overly aggressive to where she’s making the official blow the whistle.

“And obviously, she’s going to have to be more selfish too. She’s in a special situation. Any time your point guard is your best scorer, you’ve got to get creative because all five people are going to be opened up to you.”

Jadyn Field was not available at the start of last season as she recuperated from knee surgery. Hunter also grew while playing a wing role.

“I think Field and Hunter are still growing into those roles,” Burrus added. “Obviously, this will be a different role for both of them. Field last year, she had to fight through a lot of adversity. And then Hunter’s role changed a lot last year too. We counted on her a lot more. I think she started in every game. I hope that last year helped Hunter’s growth for this year. Obviously, those three though, we need them to lead with their play and by example, and obviously in practice, they set the tone with how hard we go and what kind of practices we’re going to have.”

Burrus said Hunter will take on “that R.J. role” where she will have to be available if Wilson draws extra attention on the perimeter or teams try to clamp down on Jadyn Field in the post.

Burrus said last year’s team “lived and died by the 3 at times” and said that he has to be “creative” as far as how the team scores its points. Rochester’s offensive average under Burrus has gone from 32 in 2023 to 37 in 2024 to 40 last year. Rochester went 11-1 when they scored 40 or more points in a game last year and 5-6 when they did not.

“We had some games where we fell on the sword because we didn’t shoot it well enough,” Burrus said. “So our thought process has been how do we get ourselves to the basket more. So we’ve been working on that more. We worked on that this summer. Getting downhill to the basket… if I have my shoulders and my hips by my defender, I need to go finish it, or if I draw the help, I’m snap bounce-passing it to one of the Fields or Miller for a layup. … That’s going to be more of an emphasis this year, but I still think… the people that need to shoot 3s, if they’re open, rip them.”

Burrus said the team will go with a two-post starting lineup. Either Miller or Ali Field will start next to Jadyn Field, and Burrus said you can “flip a coin” as to whom might start in the season opener against North Judson Thursday.

Burrus said that Conley brings defensive energy off the bench and has also worked on her shooting.

“You can’t say enough about what she can do defensively,” Burrus said. “She works really hard. I call her a street fighter. She will claw at you. She will do anything that she can to get you stopped. I love those kinds of people.”

The left-handed Gonzalez is a freshman ready to start from game one.

“I would say the speed of the game and having to make decisions on the fly,” Burrus said of the challenges Gonzalez has faced. “Eighth grade basketball is a little more robotic and methodical. At this level, if you are not making the right decisions and you are not up to speed, you’ll be exposed. We’ve had to slow things down for her a little bit. That’s normal for any freshman. The other thing, I think, too is we’ve got to continue to see her right hand develop. We haven’t had many lefties here, so that’s been a change for me as well. Being able to run things on the left side of the floor knowing that she can go baseline with her strong hand or if she’s on the right side, she can go middle with her left hand. But getting that right hand developed and then making her a more consistent shooter and then, how do you play great defense without fouling? She could get away with a lot of things in eighth grade because of her athleticism. Up here, being a freshman, there’s going to be people that are more athletic and stronger than her naturally, her being 14, 15 years old.”

Burrus reports that 12 girls have come out, and Rochester will play two quarters of JV.

“When I took this job… when you don’t have a feeder system for five years, it’s going to take five years to rebuild it,” Burrus said. “I think next year you will see we have it all the way back. I think with the eighth grade group that we have along with these groups that we have in high school currently, we’ll be back to a full varsity-JV to where we’re up to hopefully over 15 kids is where I’m at, and I think we will be. And we’re over 100 kids in our K-through-5 on the girls side.”

Colt Meadows and Alicia Helt are new to the coaching staff. Joe McCarter has moved from girls assistant coach to boys assistant coach.

Rochester girls basketball schedule

Nov. 6 – vs. North Judson, 8 p.m.

Nov. 8 – at Caston, 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 12 – vs. North Miami, 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 15 – at Peru, 1:30 p.m.

Nov. 22 – at Maconaquah, 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 25 – at Tippecanoe Valley, 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 29 – vs. Winamac, 7 p.m.

Dec. 3 – at Culver, 7:30 p.m.

Dec. 6 – vs. Southwood, 7:45 p.m.

Dec. 10 – vs. Knox, 8 p.m.