Roseburg girls basketball rebuild off to strong start as 35 players turn out in Chad Smith’s 1st season

By René Ferrán

Over the next two weeks, SBLive Oregon will break down more than 100 Oregon high school basketball teams. Here’s our look at the Roseburg girls of the Class 6A Southwest Conference.

ROSEBURG TEAM PAGE

HEAD COACH

Chad Smith, first season

2019-20 AT A GLANCE

Overall record: 2-22

League record: 0-10, sixth in Southwest

Playoffs: None

ALL-LEAGUE PLAYERS DEPARTED

F Katie Knudson, honorable mention

PLAYERS TO WATCH

G/F Chelsea Miller, Jr., 5-6

Miller swung between the JV and varsity last season, playing in several varsity games late, making her the most experienced player in the program for now. “Chelsea has a lot of those intangibles, and I look forward to seeing what she can do,” Smith said.

P Amy Carpenter, So., 5-10

Carpenter was another swing player who mostly sat on the varsity bench and soaked in what she could while being a key contributor on the JV team. She’s also the goalkeeper on the school’s girls soccer team. Smith said Carpenter has shined during summer drills and will provide an inside presence this spring.

G Jocelyn Muntifering, Jr., 5-6

Muntifering, who moves up from the JV team this season, looked good during open gyms this winter. She will add some scoring punch to the lineup. “She’s worked hard and is strong and confident,” Smith said. “We’re expecting big things from her once we get into some competition.”

F Hayden Pinard, So., 5-9

Pinard earned all-conference honorable mention as a setter for the Roseburg volleyball team this year, and now the younger sister of Attreyu Pinard (the likely starting center on the boys team) will be counted upon to contribute on the basketball court after being a standout on the JV team last season. “I can’t wait to see what she can do on varsity,” Smith said.

OUTLOOK

Night after night last winter, Smith — a JV coach under Bob Feasel in the early 2000s — sat in the stands, watching as Roseburg struggled through another winless conference season. Roseburg has lost 21 consecutive league games and 41 of its past 44 in recording four consecutive last-place finishes.

He took over for Dane Tornell (now at Umpqua Valley Christian) in July 2020, and neither the losing nor the long wait because of the pandemic has dampened Smith’s enthusiasm. He said around 35 girls turned out, which will allow him to field three teams with ease this spring.

“To have that number of girls who have shown interest is a step in the right direction,” Smith said.

That number, though, didn’t include two players who would have been counted upon heavily during a normal season — senior guards Kalina Anderson and Jazmyn Murphy. Anderson graduated early and is in Eugene attending college, and Murphy, a two-time all-SWC honorable mention pick who led the team at 9.4 points per game last season, is finishing softball season and hasn’t decided whether to play basketball.

Even if Murphy decides to play her final season, Roseburg will be a young and inexperienced crew which will benefit from the six-week season as Smith hopes to turn things around, implementing more motion into the offense and playing hard-nosed man-to-man defense.

“That’s the big thing — we need floor time to work on some things,” he said. “We want to ‘D’ teams up for 32 minutes and not have those mental lapses we’ve had.”

COACH SAID

“We are very, very young, and very, very inexperienced when it comes to the varsity level. You can play all the JV and freshman ball you want and play 5-on-0 in a shell, but when you get into a varsity game, it’s a whole different thing. The game speeds up. It’s going to be a challenge.” — Chad Smith