Huskies back on track, surging toward postseason, beyond

By RICHARD TORRES

For The Reporter

The turnaround is in full swing for the Hamilton Heights Huskies, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.

A year after winning five games, the Class 3A Huskies are back on track with a 13-4 record only two weeks into January, and the program’s rebuild is just getting started with six freshmen on the roster.

In 2024-25, it took the Hamilton Heights girls basketball team 19 games to reach five victories. In 2004-05, the last time the program posted sub-five wins, the Huskies needed 13 games to tally three wins.

This year, coach Erin Trimpe’s revamped squad used five games to reach three wins and seven games to match last season’s ceiling.

“I think the season’s going pretty well, especially as young as we are,” Hamilton Heights freshman forward Riley Suarez said. “I feel like since the beginning of the season, we’ve adapted pretty well. It’s a learning process, and we haven’t lost two in a row.”

The Huskies haven’t lost more than two games in any month this season with four freshmen starters in the lineup and a pair of rising stars in 6-foot-1 Suarez and 5-5 freshman point guard Bayleigh Eisele.

A season after averaging 35.0 points per game, the Huskies have nearly doubled their output at 60.8 ppg with all four freshmen leading the team in scoring.

Zoey Curry (8.5 ppg, 3.7 rpg), a 6-0 forward, and Addison Blum (9.0 ppg, 3.2 rpg), a 5-7 guard, rank fourth and third, respectively, behind Eisele (10.2 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 4.4 apg) and Suarez (23.5 ppg, 6.0 rpg).

“I feel like so far, we’re doing much better than last year and building onto that. I think it’s important to show people how much we have grown, especially all being freshmen for the most part,” Suarez said.

Chemistry among the program’s youth infusion has played a role, as has leadership from a trio of returnees in juniors Kamryn Rhoton (5.6 ppg, 3.7 rpg) and Reece Blanton and sophomore Abi Hilfiker.

“The girls that stuck with us last year did such a great job of setting the tone. Those who returned this year have talked with these girls about the culture we’re setting and what we’re doing,” Trimpe said. “Our freshmen are following that and helping it grow.”

Eisele and Suarez are fortifying the foundation.

Suarez is shooting 58 percent in her first season and has eclipsed 20 points in 11 games while posting a career-high 35 points against Peru on Dec. 3.

She has 102 rebounds and 399 points through 17 games, but more significantly, Suarez is converting 50 percent (33-for-66) from 3-point range and 82 percent from the free-throw line (50-for-61).

Eisele is shooting 51 percent with 173 points (nine double-digit games) and has hauled in 72 rebounds and dished out 75 assists.

“It’s so fun to have a little point guard like Bayleigh. She just has the highest motor. She knows how to create for herself and for her teammates. She almost is always our leading rebounder also,” Trimpe said.

“When you have a kid with a motor like that, and you can play kind of a two-man game, it only opens up everybody else. The two of them do a great job. They’ve played together their whole lives, so they do a great job playing off each other.”

The duo cut their teeth with the West Virginia Thunder, a Grand Park Premier girls basketball club in Westfield, since grade school. Currently, Suarez is playing with Indy One EYBL for Danny Riego.

Now, they’re pushing the Huskies back into the Hoosier Conference championship and Sectional 24 conversation.

Regardless of the result, optimism is growing for February and beyond.

“The kids, whether we won five games or where we are now, they’re so coachable, and they’re just ready to learn. It’s been something that has kind of reinvigorated my love for coaching,” said Trimpe, who is in her second year at Heights.

“Even with the five-win record, we had kids who were ready to help build something, and I can’t tell the girls how much I appreciate that from them.”