(WEEKI WACHEE)- In the first 89 games of Weeki Wachee’s girls basketball program history starting in 2012, the team was everyone’s circled win on the schedule.
When you faced the Hornets, you could almost with certainty walk in the gymnasium knowing your club would likely be coming away with a victory. These are not your same old Weeki Wachee girls, though, any longer as the program has completed a turnaround the last three seasons in becoming a club not many want to face.
“Support has definitely been there a lot more because of the winning,” Weeki Wachee coach Mike Munroe said. “We’re starting to get some respect. No one is overlooking us anymore. We have to be prepared to get everyone’s best shot. This year we are being circled as a team that people want to beat.”
The Hornets in the last two seasons previous to this 2017-2018 campaign, the team has steadily improved from 15-11 in 2015-2016 and 21-9 last year. Weeki Wachee’s impressive turnaround stumps a once was a 50-game losing streak the program went through during its 5-84 stretch the first few seasons.
“We’ve never won a district title here in basketball and you never know what’s gonna happen in the district tournaments we are fighting through some injuries right now,” Munroe said. “We were averaging 60 points per game, but because of injuries we are down to around 45 a game. Looking towards the second half of the season, we have to be ready the second time around against these teams.”
Munroe, who has been coaching girls basketball for the last 18 years, believes he’s got one of his most talented team to date during his time at Weeki Wachee. The longtime coach pointed out the play of senior point Halie Bondulich and defensive specialist Rhiannon Randall, whom both have played very well this season.
“We’ve got some hard working kids but we’re a veteran group,” Munroe added. “I’ve got an outstanding point guard in Haile Bondulich. I’ve got some veterans on this team. When you don’t have to worry about your sixth or seventh person on the team, you’ve got a solid team. We have a nice defensive player in Rhiannon Randall. These kids have all worked hard in the off-season.”
Weeki Wachee had one of the tougher schedules in Hernando County when it came to the early weeks, as the Hornets opened up against Palm Harbor University, Springstead and Nature Coast. With the Hornets picking up key victories against all three clubs, it help set the tone for the rest of the first half of the season. The Hornets did drop their first game of the season when they faced Armwood in the Hernando Holiday Classic tournament.
“We played some tough road games early on,” Munroe said about the schedule. “I wasn’t really sure how we were going to handle that. Now the challenge is how we play these teams the second time.”
“One thing is we’ve had a lot of games where we’ve had big leads and we don’t have to play our starters. That third game against Armwood the girls were getting tired and they came out with a lot of energy. But they were a very good quality team. Palm Harbor was another good club we’ve seen already as well. The tournament did give us an opportunity to see some different teams. Chamberlain was competitive. Armwood is very very athletic.”