​Eagles to work on figuring out offensive chemistry during summer workouts

by Michael Smith


The Grain Valley girls basketball team had a strong 2023-24 season.

The Eagles won a share of the Suburban White Conference title with Platte County and ended their season with a solid 18-7 record after a loss to Columbia Hickman in the Class 6 District 7 championship tournament.

The Eagles will now use this summer to turn the chapter to the 2024-25 season as they will move on without seven players who graduated, five of whom were rotational players and two who would have been in the rotation but missed the season due to injury or illness.

“We graduated a really special senior class,” Draper said.

Despite losing a big core of the team to graduation, the Eagles return some solid players who saw varsity time last season, including Suburban White Conference Player of the Year Addy Seyfert.

Veteran head coach Randy Draper and the Eagles began their summer camps and workouts in late May and will hold summer workouts and attend camps through June 25.

The summer is a time the team uses to build chemistry, work on conditioning, and gives the coaches an idea of what the team will look like when the regular season begins in the winter.

“The summer workouts really helps because we have so many new girls,” Seyfert said. “We can see what skillsets the freshmen have. We can work on our chemistry and that’s important because we don’t get a ton of practice time before the season starts.”

Four players who saw significant time are returning, including Seyfert, senior Pyper Hartigan, sophomore Madison Rust, senior Camryn Kelly, and junior Aspen Reed. So, Grain Valley will have quite a few players who have experience playing with each other.

But there is one question Draper would like to see answered during the summer: Can the offense will perform at a high level without last year’s graduates?

“The group we just graduated were passers,” Draper said. “We have girls who can score points. Last year, we had girls who passed it to each other well and the seniors made sure to get the ball where it needed to go. We must prove we can do that with this group.”

“We want to find out what they can do.”

So far, so good.

Grain Valley has fared well against competition at a camp on May 31 at Lee’s Summit West High School. In three scrimmages, the Eagles varsity team finished 3-0.

“I wasn’t surprised at how we did, but I felt even better about the team we have than I did before,” Draper said. “I was pleased. They played well.”

Draper will have plenty of players to choose from to fill out the rest of the varsity rotation as about 24 players have been involved in summer workouts. He said he’s confident he can find girls who can step in and fill the spots the seniors left behind.

“I like our numbers,” Draper said. “It’s competitive during the summer. Playing here is not easy. We have a lot of talented players. It’s fun to see how some of the new players fit into the team puzzle.”

Reed said she was optimistic with how the team will look even after losing so many seniors from last season’s team.

“We are missing a lot of pieces and we are trying to figure out where we go now,” Reed said. “I think it’s going to work out well. We have a lot of girls who do different things.”

​Added Seyfert: “We have adjusted well, and we made a lot of shots (at the West camp).”

Grain Valley junior Aspen Reed drives to her right and tries to get around Bella Bollinger. Photo credit: Michael Smith

Correction: 6/13/2024 4:10pm - Individual at right in photo corrected to Bella Bollinger.

​Grain Valley junior Addy Seyfert drives to the basket as senior Pyper Hartigan defends during a 1-on-1 drill in a team workout last Tuesday. Photo credit: Michael Smith