Arcadia girls to emphasize defense ahead of hoops season opener Thursday

After the Arcadia High School girls basketball team qualified for the state tournament two years ago, those within the program knew significant changes were coming for the team.

When last season began, the team had a new head coach in Lucas Passehl and was attempting to replace a group of six seniors who had graduated in 2020.

It was the beginning of a bit of a rebuild for the Raiders, one that Passehl expects to continue moving forward when his team opens the season in Altoona on Thursday.

“It’s a lot of the same this year,” Passehl said of the program compared to last season. “We just don’t have a ton of experience coming back.”

Passehl doesn’t envision having a problem scoring because players these days spend a lot of their time working on offense and shooting. But he expects the defensive side of the game to come with a bit of a learning curve this winter, as it did for most of last season.

“It’ll be a roller coaster season is what I anticipate,” he said. “We have talent, we have some skilled players, we have players that I know will be able to score. My biggest challenge last year and what it will be again this year is defense.”

One of the players who does return with experience is junior guard Breah Golden, who averaged 15.9 points per game last season on a Raiders team that finished 8-9 overall and 6-5 in the Coulee Conference before losing at the regional level in the playoffs.

Junior Autumn Passehl was also on the team that advanced to state in 2020 and joined Golden as an all-conference player last season, and her coach said she should be another leader for the Raiders.

Sophomore Cassidi Pehler and senior Kianna Suchla will likely have expanded roles this season, and Passehl pointed to Suchla as one player who could help the team improve.

“She’s one of those players that takes a little time as far as understanding things, but she’ll continue to put the effort in and grow,” he said of the senior. “So I do expect quite a big jump for her this year, being more of a threat versus just trying to keep up with the speed.” 

The Coulee Conference should be competitive again this season, and Passehl said he expects West Salem to repeat as champs. He thinks the Raiders have a real shot at the two spot, one that will be tightly contested among the Raiders, G-E-T, Luther and Westby.

Passehl wants his players to be more aggressive on offense this season, saying it isn’t as common in 2021 to have players who drive the paint aggressively instead of stepping back to shoot. He thinks getting his team to be mentally tough in tight to the net could help close the gap in the conference.

“We’ve got shooters, and they’re going to shoot. But at the same time, I’m trying to build that mental toughness of getting inside and getting to the free throw line and getting to the basket,” Passehl said.

Toughness on defense will also be important for his team, he said. If they can continue to improve without the ball, Passehl thinks his team has the ability to become a complete, improved group.

As they prepare for games to begin this week, becoming that team will be the focus.

“Kids are more skilled than we’ve ever seen probably, but at the same time kids forget about or don’t want to work hard on the defensive end,” he said. “They just want to score points. So there’s a lot of skilled offensive players out there. But we have to be able to match that intensity defensively to be able to be successful.”