Indians intend to defend Class B District basketball title

The defending Class B girls district basketball champions, Tecumseh High School, return four from last season’s varsity squad while bringing up seven players from the junior varsity team.Three of the returning players, sophomore Olivia Mills, junior Morgan Skelton and senior Maddie Tedora, were leading point scorers for the Indians at the end of last season and were instrumental in advancing Tecumseh to the regional final after defeating New Boston Huron 37-35 in the regional semifinal.The Indians went 12-13 overall for the season.Skelton is coming in off an injury and Mills said he expects her to see action sometime near the end of January. “We’ve got a lot of our kids up from the JV team,” Mills said. “We’re young, a little inexperienced, but it’s a great group of kids.”Up from the JV squad are sophomore guards Megan Freitas and Emily Phelan, sophomore center Becca Mammel, junior forward Arika Tabor, junior guard Albany Lagore, junior forward Sarah Gilson, senior forward Kara Warman.Second year head Tecumseh coach Griff Mills did not have his starting lineup set during the preseason interview but expected everyone on the Indians’ roster to contribute for success.“In some way I’ll see everyone contributing, whether they start or not,” said Mills. “We’ll get it done by committee this year. So, we’ll have a lot of kids, I think, playing. Our starters really haven’t surfaced to the top yet.”Mills doesn’t name his team co-captains. At the end of the year Mills has his players vote for the following season’s co-captains. He said he rotates the leaders from game-to-game depending on who’s stepping up that week.“Captain is a title. And I really like people to earn that through their teammates,” said Mills.After having such an exciting season last year by picking up its first district title in the last 23 years, Mills was unsure just how this year’s younger team would respond with targets on their backs as the defending district champions.“We’ve got just a really young, inexperienced group of kids that we’re going to keep building and working with,” said Mills. “I think you’ll see us get better as we go. They are a hard-working group and they are really smart. So, that piece is really a nice thing. They pick things up really quickly.”The Indians lost six seniors to graduation last year and have just two, Tedora and Warman, on the roster this season.Tecumseh opened the season at home on Tuesday against Dundee and won 52-40.