On Nov. 11, Kate Francisco officially committed to Kent State for next year. Now the Marysville High School senior girls basketball player is looking forward to her final season with the Monarchs.

"I'm really excited," Francisco said. "I just want to have fun and go all out."

A new style of basketball will debut in Marysville's opener on Dec. 1 at Bellefontaine, and that style is "going all out."

Marysville finished 5-16 overall last season after losing to Newark 36-29 in the first round of the Division I district tournament. In the OCC-Cardinal Division, the Monarchs were seventh at 3-11, behind champion Dublin Scioto (14-0), Westerville South (11-3), Dublin Jerome (9-5), Olentangy Liberty (8-6), Olentangy (5-9) and Westerville North (5-9), and ahead of Westerville Central (1-13).

The last two seasons, Marysville is a combined 15-28.

Looking to improve during the summer, Francisco and many of her teammates played in AAU summer games and competed in open gyms and shootouts across the state. Last July, the Monarchs attended a team camp in North Carolina and faced quality competition.

"We had 26 girls attend the team camp," coach Aric Tucker said. "We played North Canton Hoover there, a team with a point guard going to Virginia Tech, an AAU team and a state runner-up team. We saw good competition."

It was during that time Tucker had a premonition and began to implement the Monarchs' new up-tempo style.

"I always believe you have to play fundamental basketball and do things that way," Tucker said. "We're still going to play fundamental, but at a faster pace. During the summer, we pushed the ball in transition and got a shot off in six seconds or less. In our half-court offense, we wanted to be more like Bowling Green with a high screen and roll."

Tucker made the change to adapt his personnel. Last season, Francisco started for her third consecutive season and averaged 13.0 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists. She is 233 points away from 1,000 in her career and 245 from becoming Marysville's all-time leading scorer.

"Kate is a key to our change," Tucker said. "We have some other big girls inside, but if teams decide to match their post player on Kate, she can outrun her defender and get an easy layup. If they put someone small on her in the half court, she can post them up and score."

Francisco is one of seven returning letterwinners, along with seniors Elizabeth Lewis (guard), Dani Jordan (forward), Sarah Van Voorhis (guard/forward), Morgan Westbrook (guard) and Chelsey Wyman (guard) and junior Jenny Jordan (guard). Jordan, who was honorable mention all-league, averaged 9.0 points and 2.1 assists.

"Jenny is good in the open court, so our new style of play will help her," Tucker said. "We have more depth this year. We're still trying to find out who fits where. In some of our scrimmages, we had 13 kids dress varsity and we played all 13. We'll be able to give Jenny or Kate a break here or there."

Marysville, who graduated only two players last year in Whitney McClain (guard) and Lauren Tullis (guard/forward), is in search of a leader.

Whether it's one player, two players or a group, Tucker wants someone to set high standards and it begins in practice.

"The kids are buying into what we're doing," Tucker said. "We have to have a group of kids take charge and lead us. If we develop that, and stay healthy, which every coach says, I think we'll be fine."