Susie Gardner ready to see her young Mercer team grow

Susie Gardner is certain her current players with the Mercer women's basketball team will show plenty of growth in the next couple of seasons.

First things first. Gardner isn't about to look past this season and think about what might happen when this year's players have more experience.

Just the opposite is true. Gardner is excited about seeing her young team -- with seven freshmen, six sophomores and one junior college transfer -- grow through this season.

The Bears tip off their season Friday against Coastal Georgia at Hawkins Arena.

"The advantage will be the growth of our team in two or three years. The advantage is that we have only sophomores, freshmen and one junior college transfer, but we have sophomores and freshmen that are going to grow at the same pace," Gardner said. "That's what's going to be fun about it, watching them all grow at the same pace and get better at almost the same time. I don't know if there will be an advantage at our very first game, that type of thing, but that is going to be the advantage as time goes by."

Kahlia Lawrence is one of the six returning sophomores, and she had the biggest impact last year, starting 34 of Mercer's 35 games. She averaged 13.4 points per game and was the Southern Conference Freshman of the Year.

Alex Williams improved through the 2014-15 season and saw more minutes as the season went by, playing in 34 games and starting 16. She averaged 4.3 points and 6.4 rebounds per game. The other four sophomores are Sydni Means, Brittnee Broadway, Shon Kitchens and Kayla Potts.

"I think that we're growing very well together," Means said. "I'm really looking forward to how this team's going to be because we are so young. We're still getting to know each other, but we have a lot of potential, and if we continue to work hard every day at practice, then we will be a very good team."

The freshman group includes former Mary Persons standout KeKe Calloway and former Dodge County center Rachel Selph, while Amanda Thompson quickly has become one of the team's leaders.

"I think mostly it's just team goals," Thompson said of her focus as a freshman. "We just want to get better every day in practice, and I think that's a personal goal, too. Also, to focus on energy and being super high-energy, I think that's important for the team. With us being so young, that's easy because we all still have a lot of excitement for the season."

Bears sign two: Gardner's program added two players Wednesday -- Germani Abram and India Blakely. Abram is a 6-foot-2 forward from Huntsville, Alabama, while Blakely is a 5-7 guard from Troy, Alabama.

This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 8:42 PM with the headline "Susie Gardner ready to see her young Mercer team grow ."