SNOW HILL — Meredith Franklin believes in playing fast and having a good time, and that one begets the other.
So it is that the first-year Greene Central High School girls coach is bringing her up-tempo style to a program in need of a few laughs.
Call it run-’n’-fun basketball.
Franklin, a 22-year-old former Meredith College shooting guard, is trying to inject life into a team that went 0-21 last season and won just six games the year before.
She’ll use a mix of veterans and newcomers to employ an all-out approach when the Rams open the season at North Lenoir today at 6 p.m.
“I like fast basketball,” Franklin said. “The thing about that, too — when you’re full-court, when you’re pressing, when you’re doing fast-break — it’s fun. It’s a lot more fun. I think these girls need to understand they need to have fun, because I don’t know how much of that was had last year. It’s not easy to have fun when you’re not winning.”
Monesia Moore, a 5-foot-9 senior guard/forward, returns after averaging a team-high 7.9 points last season. Franklin expects freshman guard Dasheka Mason to help carry the scoring load.
Speedy guard Alexis Robinson and forward Joy Stevens, both seniors, give Greene Central some measure of experience, while freshman point guard Malaysia Lancaster is among the new faces expected to contribute.
Franklin, who played at New Bern High School and has helped Hall of Fame coach Sylvia Hatchell run her summer camps at North Carolina for the past few years, arrived in June and started workouts with her new players the following month.
It didn’t take long for her to figure out what kind of team she had.
“We’re extremely athletic. We’re extremely fast. We’re extremely quick,” Franklin said. “I don’t think they understand how quick they are. I think it’s so normal to them, they don’t get it. Once we kind of key into that and get on the court and use that characteristic, we’ll be good to go.”
Franklin took over for former coach Tonya Winfield, who stepped down after four seasons. The Rams last finished above .500 in 2010, when they went 15-10 and finished fourth in the Eastern Plains 2A Conference.
Asked for her expectations in the wake of a winless season, Franklin called this season “a learning year” while remaining optimistic that her team can be competitive.
“I just want them to grow,” she said. “I want them to learn. We’re probably going to have our ups and we’re probably going to have our downs. But hopefully, it’ll be more ups than downs.”
David Hall can be reached at (252) 559-1086 or at email@example.com.