The Keys Cougars return four starters from last year’s team which will provide some experience, but most eyes will be on incoming freshman Payton Zodrow, a VYPE TOP 100 nominee for 2023.

“Payton is a talented player with an exceptionally high basketball IQ for a freshman,” said second year coach Cruz Lynch. “She’ssomeone people will be talking about for the next four years.”

Payton gets her basketball IQ from her parents who are or were both coaches at some point. “Since both of my parents were coaches, I was kind of “forced” into athletics when I was four or five. In basketball I started playing in little leagues around the area and my mom was our coach. She played in high school and at Northeastern State and so I’ve always looked up to her,” said Payton who also plays softball (where her father is the head coach), runs just about all events in track as well as cross country. Though she’s gained lots of experience playing travel ball, Payton says there have been some challenges moving to high school basketball this year. “As the point guard I was used to mostly facilitating but now that I’m in high school I’m going to be called on to be more of a scorer as well and that’s required a change of mindset and has been a bit of a struggle.” After playing both basketball and softball when she was young, Payton says she got burned out on softball and stopped playing at around eight or nine years old until this past fall when she started playing for her dad in high school. Payton has a younger sister in the eighth grade that plays basketball which has led to some sibling competition.

“She practices with the high school after school and we can get pretty heated guarding one another,” laughed Payton who says her goal in her first year of high school ball is to average 15 points a game while continuing to help her teammates get open shots.