Fresh off of a runner-up finish in MAIS District 2-AAA as well as the AAA North State, the Winston Academy girls basketball team lost its coach a few weeks ago.
Moe Reed left WA to take over as head coach at Heritage Academy in the same position leaving the position vacant in Louisville. That didn’t last long, however, as the Lady Patriots already have a head woman in charge for next season as the school year finishes up this week.
Kelley Greer has taken over for the Lady Patriots girls basketball team and will also help with track and field as well as softball next school year. For Greer, it’s an opportunity she’s been waiting for after several years out of coaching.
“It has been amazing,” Greer said of the new job. “I feel so excited about what we have in store at Winston. We have some really great talent and I think when we develop those players, we’ll be competing with teams we haven’t been able to compete with the last few years. I’m ready to go to work.”
Greer, like Reed, played basketball on the next level and has coaching experience as well. She won four state championships as a softball player at Central Academy in Macon several years ago and won a state championship in basketball during her senior season.
Her head coaching career in basketball began at West Point in 2006 where she coached a couple of seasons, but Greer has devoted her time to motherhood since. Now, she’s back in the game and has been itching to get there for a while now.
Last week was Greer’s first chance to meet all of the players and 35 of them have come out to play either junior high or high school basketball. The turnout is something that blew Greer away, but there’s work to do. WA lost some very important seniors in Lilly Sisson, Madelyn Bright and Bailey Wood and replacing their production will be no easy task.
“We do have some work to do,” Greer said. “I know that we’re going to need some bigger players in the post. In the past, we haven’t played a lot of zone defense but we’re going to play some man this year.” “Not everybody is going to have the same skills, but I believe that everybody has something that they can bring to the floor. I will put the ones out there that are ready to play. I know that the talent is there and they have the desire to play. I’m ready to compete.
WA begins their first practices this week and will practice during the summer months as well with four practices per week in June and July to get them prepped for a season in the competitive 2-AAA.
