By Clayton Sauertieg
New Castle News

Lauren Frederick’s goal for the Wilmington High girls basketball team was clear and concise.
“We won four last year,” she said. “And we wanted to win more this year than we did last year.”
Frederick and her Lady Greyhounds teammates are well on the way to completing that goal, seemingly with ease, as they’ve won four straight games and now sit at 4-3 on the season.
Wilmington’s success is due in large part to the individual success of Frederick, who leads the team in scoring through seven games. In the Lady Greyhounds two contests last week, both victories, Frederick averaged 18.5 points per game and six steals. Frederick’s contributions on and off the court have been invaluable to Wilmington in the midst of a four-game winning streak.
“I knew we had something special in Lauren when I first came here,” first-year coach Rick Holzworth said of Frederick. “When I first started, I learned that the girls were actually already having practices that were organized by Lauren. So they had already been in the gym and the weight room under her leadership.”
Frederick has helped to steady the ship for the Lady Greyhounds in difficult times. Holzworth was named the head coach just weeks before the season started after previous head coach Matt Fabian left to take the same job at Hickory, and senior Lexi Brumbaugh and junior Jenna Peoples did not come out for the team. But Holzworth said Frederick and her teammates never once got down on themselves, even after Wilmington started the season with three consecutive losses.
“The best thing about Lauren is that she’s a better person than she is a basketball player, and obviously she’s a pretty good basketball player,” Holzworth said. “She always goes the extra mile to help and encourage the other girls. Lauren’s greatest asset is that she’s such a great, great person and a tremendous leader.”
Frederick has been thrust into a leadership role on a team that features just two seniors, but the dynamic, 5-foot-5 guard says the transition hasn’t been a difficult one.
“Having this team behind me has helped me a lot,” she said. “At first I thought it was going to be a challenge, but having Reilly (Hunt) help me through that as well has helped a lot. We both just took over the team, with coach as well, and I’m excited to work with them.”
Working with Holzworth has helped Frederick improve both her skills and her confidence on the court.
“He’s a great coach,” she said. “He’s always positive with us and I like his philosophies on basketball and we adapted very well to him so we’re all the more determined to play for him.”
As the two become acclimated, Frederick has become an even greater weapon for the surging Lady Greyhounds.
“She just bubbles over with confidence,” Holzworth said of his senior leader. “She thinks we’re going to win every possession of every game and is just a very, very positive person.
“With the rocky start we had, we could’ve gone south very fast and she really held everybody together. Because of that and because of her we were able to take that rough start and turn it into four wins in a row.”
Those four wins have Wilmington over .500 and full of confidence.
With Frederick at the forefront, it’s not hard to see why.
(Email:csauertieg@ncnewsonline.com)