It was an offseason of change for the Juanita girls basketball team, which now has a new league — and a new outlook.

The Rebels team leader, Breezy Rinehart-Young, graduated and now plays basketball at George Fox University. She averaged in the high-teens in points and rebounds per game and helped Juanita improve from 2-17 in 2006-07 to 9-11 last year, winning their first KingCo game in more than four years.

This season, coach Sam Lee is intent on taking that progress one step further, but Juanita has a few hurdles to jump over first.

Rebuilding

Set to replace Rinehart-Young, senior forward Taylor Kleis came down with a stress fracture and could miss her entire senior season. Last year the 6-foot forward averaged 6.0 rebounds and 5.5 points per game.

The loss of Kleis is magnified by the team’s overall smaller size, compared to the rest of the league. But Lee understands his team is small and for the Rebels, it means they just have to keep working.

“We’re a blue collar team,” he said. “If we’re going to win, we’re going to have to simply work harder than everyone else.”

To fill the gap in production, Lee said the team simply has to step their game up. The Rebels played a lot of offseason games in the spring and summer to get the players used to not having Rinehart-Young present.

“For the first half of a dozen games or so they were always looking to get the ball to Breezy and she wasn’t there,” Lee said. “But we played a lot and practiced a lot and they’re used to playing without her now.”

The one situation where Rinehart-Young’s absence will leave a hole is offensive rebounding.

The team

Senior Tori Close moved from wing to forward because at 5-foot-11, she’s the tallest Juanita player. Close will be looked on to improve her scoring and rebound production from last season, when she averaged 4.1 points and 3.1 rebounds per game.

Junior forward Rachel Marshall will also provide a little more size inside (5-9) and some help on rebounds. She averaged 2.8 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game last season.

Sophomore Taylor Paddock could play a big role in the tight-knit squad. The 5-9 guard/forward will likely come off the bench often to minimize their size disadvantage.

The Rebels’ offensive strategy seems to rest in the hands of experienced senior Olivia Marshall. Along with Close, Marshall is a co-captain of the Rebels. She will be the Rebels’ top scoring option most nights, as Lee said she took on much more of a scoring role in summer games and practice. Marshall earned an Honorable Mention for the KingCo 4A all-league team last season, when she averaged 9.2 points, 2.3 steals, 2.6 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game. Pairing with Marshall in the back court are speedy sisters Kim and Michelle Baba, both playing at guard with their aggressive and uptempo style. The two attended a national point guard camp this summer and Lee said they learned a number of new skills. Kim averaged 3.7 points, 1.3 steals and 3.5 rebounds per game last season. Michelle averaged 3.5 points, 1.3 steals and 2.1 rebounds per game last season.

Junior guard Mandy Wilson may play an expanded role. Last season she came off the bench as the sixth or seventh player for the Rebels. She averaged 2.8 points and 1.8 rebounds per game in that role.

A new league

Lee faces the challenge of overturning the recent history of a program, down for a few years and used to losing by wide margins. In a move to change that attitude, Juanita High School athletic teams switched from KingCo 4A to KingCo 3A and an entirely new league.

The varsity girls basketball program went more than four years without a KingCo win before Lee led the Rebels to four league wins and a 9-11 overall record last season. Lee said because the program has been down, the girls got used to getting beat by big margins against teams like Roosevelt, Redmond, Garfield, Franklin and Inglemoor. As they grew up going through junior high in the area, all the girls heard about was the girls team losing. Now with fresh competition the Rebels get a fresh start.

“Now they’re facing teams that are probably just as good,” Lee said. “But they don’t know that.”

In Lee’s first stint as Juanita’s girls basketball coach (1997-2001) it took him three seasons to get the Rebels into districts, but Lee is hoping progress will be more accelerated this time around. His goal for this season is to get Juanita into districts.

Juanita opens the season Nov. 29 at Bishop Blanchet.