Northern Nash coach Grover Battle preaching patience

Grover Battle’s 26-year tenure in charge of the Northern Nash girls basketball program has been a glorious one. During that stretch, the Knights have claimed 14 conference championships, boasted five Division I signees and earned a 4A state championship in 1998.

Battle has experienced very few rebuilding periods, but this is one of them as the Knights feature a young team with zero senior starters and a trio of important freshman contributors.

Post player Kristian Johnson, one of those ninth-graders, paced the Northern Nash on Tuesday with 12 points as the Knights were never threatened after scoring the first 11 points of the 42-22 win on Monday night.

“When you have a team that doesn’t have a lot of experience, you have to be a little more patient,” Battle said. “We have some players who are still learning as we go. We are so young that we really don’t have a lot of leadership, and that has hurt us.”

This story was originally published January 24, 2017 at 9:37 AM with the headline "Northern Nash coach Grover Battle preaching patience."