There’s a new sheriff in town for the Clayton Lady Bulldog basketball team this year as veteran coach Jennie Skimbo takes over a program that was 3-20 last year but so far is impressed with what she’s seen.

“From what I’ve seen so far, they have the work ethic I really appreciate. I always go into a new situation with the idea that I need to work as hard as the girls do to help make them successful and it’s up to me to sell my philosophy which is “if you think you can, you will’ and that ‘practice doesn’t make perfect if you don’t practice perfect.’”

Sisters Jamie and Emily Oldham represent two of the players that are buying into that philosophy.

Jamie is a senior post player who is also in cheer and student council.

“Emily and I grew up in a small K-8 school where playing basketball was just a foregone conclusion and our dad was super athletic in high school and really pushed into the sport from the time we could dribble a basketball,” said the elder Oldham who admits she had to take a break from the game for a year. “I took my sophomore year off from basketball for various reasons but coming back last year really rekindled my love for the game so I’m really looking forward to this season.”

Emily is a sophomore forward for the Lady Bulldogs and has been in cheer, played softball for a couple of seasons and is also in student council.

“Growing up my dad has been my role model because of all the people I’ve heard talk about how he played. He’s always pushed us by practicing with us until we could finally take him,” Emily laughed. “With coach Skimbo things are a lot different and even though we haven’t played a game for her yet, we have a lot of respect for her.”

Skimbo admits that there’s a lot of work to do at Clayton but is optimistic about the upcoming season in which Clayton moves down to Class B.

“I never make predictions about wins and losses, but I’ll say that I’ll be very disappointed if we don’t finish with a better record than last year.”