Girls basketball: Meyers has Lyons plotting a move up ladder

Updated: November 14, 2011 7:00PM

Despite playing college basketball and serving for four years as an assistant coach, Katie Meyers feels she still has much to learn as Lyons Township’s girls basketball head coach.

After losing four of its first five games last season, LT climbed back within one game of .500 after beating Willowbrook 48-33 at the Wheaton North Holiday Classic. But then Lyons Township couldn’t recover from a seven-game losing streak, which finally ended in early February.

Lyons Township (9-17 overall, 4-8 West Suburban Silver in 2010-11) won two of three to end the regular season, but lost its IHSA Class 4A playoff opener to DuSable 56-48.

“Last year, I felt we stopped improving,” Meyers said. “I think we played 10 games where we showed improvement and then plateaued. This year, our goal is to never stop improving. I’m learning every single day. Next year, I will know more.”

Senior guard Colleen Connors and 5-foot-11 junior Ashanti Davis are the returnees for LT. Connors is a tri-captain, along with senior returnees Clare Polega and Maggie Orlowski.

That trio makes up the heart of this season’s team, which opens against Queen of Peace in the Lyons Thanksgiving Tournament — at the south campus in Western Springs — at 6:30 p.m. Friday.

One of Meyers’ favorite players to watch last season was Polega, a 5-10 forward who was a part-time starter.

“She works harder than anyone else,” Meyers said. “People from the community would ask me, ‘Who’s No. 40?’ I like her because she works so hard.”

Meyers is excited about a pair of newcomers. Sophomore guard Kayla Morrissey transferred from Benet, and Vicki Swift is a freshman guard. Meyers didn’t know Swift would be ready for the varsity level until tryouts. Meyers wanted to see how she could handle it, so Swift participated in a few scrimmages and was actually scoring in the practice games.

“Players like Vicki are a key to the future of the program,” Meyers said. “She is a great athlete and comes from a great club team. She demonstrates what a coach likes, but she’s a freshman.”

Morrissey is no stranger to the program. She grew up participating in Lyons Township youth summer camps, and Meyers was pleased to see Morrissey when school began in August.

Meyers, who graduated from LT in 1999, was a former star under previous coach Dawn Schabacker. She went on to play at the University of Evansville (Ind.) and at Eastern Illinois.

This season’s LT team is guard-heavy, but Meyers claims the program has some post player developing on the freshmen teams.

Junior Sara Beck, a 6-0 forward, was a midseason call-up last season. She’s not related to Danielle Beck, LT’s top post player last season, who graduated.

Two other juniors expected to play quite a bit are Morgan Houk and Katie Callahan.

“I have already made a lot of changes from last year,” Meyers said. “We struggled putting the ball in the hoop. We had contact days (in the offseason) that were offense-only (at practice).”

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