With what seems to be a lot of “new” surrounding the Eastside Lady Eagles basketball program, the team will enter with familiarity under new head coach Rod Baker.
Baker served as an assistant on the staff of former head coach Gladys King, who stepped down after the 2024 season.
Baker is familiar with his players, and the first-year coach noted that the transition has been perfect.
“They all know me, we don’t have any new girls varsity-wise,” Baker said. “I have been here as long as they have so they all know me. It has been pretty seamless.”
The Lady Eagles’ head coaching position is the first of its kind for Baker, but he hit the ground running when the promotion was made official.
“The offseason has been great,” Baker said. “We got some good workouts during the spring. We did a summer league and a fall league so we have been preparing for the upcoming season.”
Along with the loss of King on the bench, the team lost notable seniors such as Jailyn Williams, Morgan Sandema, Sofia Howell and Meredith Withington.
With the loss of those four, Baker noted that a new group has emerged as the team’s next leaders.
Baker referenced senior Jarilix Riveria as well as juniors Ari Carter and Janiya Jackson as a new trio of leaders for the Lady Eagles.
“The first thing I wanted to do was to have our leaders understand their leadership role,” Baker said. “We just want to make sure things are crisp and that we build on what we already have. We know we have a pretty tough region as far as the girls go and we just want to compete, and I think we did that this summer. We did it in the fall league and we want to keep it going.”
In what was her sophomore season, Carter flashed.
Carter finished third on the team in points per game at 7.6.
Outside of Williams who graduated last year, Riviera’s 70 three-pointers were first on the team and by a wide margin.
Now with another year under their belt, Baker hopes to see a big jump from two of the team’s top options.
“Jarilix and Ari have really stepped up and I am really excited to see what Rivera will do for her senior year and what Ari will do with this leadership role as a junior,” Baker said. “I am really impressed with her.”
With Baker’s presence on the team over the last few years, he noted how many of the schematics with the team will stay the same along with a few new changes on the floor.
“We haven’t completely changed it out, we have some of the older things but we are also trying to add new things in without making it too complicated,” Baker said. “But, we do want to do some different things.”
The Lady Eagles finished the 2024 season above .500 for the third consecutive year.
If the team wants to accomplish that feat for a fourth straight time, Baker believes it will come down to the team’s sharpshooters.
“I think I have some really good shooters this year,” Baker said. “I think that is going to be one of our key things — our shooters being successful. We aren’t a really big team, but we have a lot of shooters. I think that is going to be key for us.”
The Lady Eagles finished 15-12 with a third place spot in Region 8-AAAA(7-5). Eastside only finished behind North Oconee(29-2) and Madison County(14-12).
Even as a first year coach with players at the forefront for the first time, Baker has high aspirations for what the Lady Eagles can do.
“I feel like we can still compete like we did last year,” Baker said. “I know we ended in that four-team two-way tie and I feel we are at least there. North Oconee is going to be a tough team to beat. I think we still stack up at the top.”
