Snead State Women’s Basketball Team Under New Leadership

For the second straight year, the Snead State women's basketball program is under new leadership. Tonya Bogle takes the reins of the Parsons after Jason Shields left for a high school job in Georgia. 

Bogle was an assistant under Shields during the spring 2021 season in which the Parsons went 6-12. The 2020-21 season was cut short and played from mid-January to early April.

Bogle has 33 years' experience coaching on the high school level. The spring season as an assistant was her first venture into the college game. Now she takes over as head coach. Bogle said that basketball is basketball but the college game is different in a couple different areas.

"The X's and O's are the same, but of course, recruiting the right players to fit into your school is a challenge for college coaches," said Bogle. "As for the game, the speed of the game and the physical play is much more an issue.

"It takes a few games to make the freshmen understand how fast and physical the game is for them."

Snead returns six players who played on the team in the spring. 

Bogle thinks the strength of the team will be the experience of those six returning sophomores. One of those sophomore leaders is sharpshooter Jasmine Davis from Arab. Davis started 17 games in the spring and led the team in scoring with 11.4 points per game. She also had 46 assist and hit 33 three pointers.

Just as the returning experience will be the team's strength, the obvious weakness will be the fact that there are eight freshmen that must learn the college game quickly. 

Bogle also named a freshman who has shown leadership potential and can contribute to the team. That freshman is Aniyah Foster from Birmingham.

Bogle thinks this team has potential to be a solid team, but just catching up from the last 15 months will take some time.

"We were so restricted with COVID last year and limited on the number of games we got to play," she said. "But with a full roster this year, we are hoping to have a better year.

"These ladies have been working hard all summer and have set goals for the season. We're just hoping it pays off."

Bogle said the non-conference schedule is tough, and as always, the conference schedule is one of the toughest and includes Shelton State and Wallace State which seem to be playing in the state tournament every year. They're usually the top two teams in the ACCC North Division.