ORANGE BEACH — It's summertime, and the three-week basketball window for teams in Alabama to practice and travel for games against other schools has closed. But Orange Beach Lady Mako Coach Terry Canova already has his eye on March 2027 and the tournament season leading to it.

One of those games included junior varsity and varsity games against Spanish Fort on June 16. Orange Beach split those games with the JV team winning and the varsity team falling to the Lady Toros.

"Well, you know, we've got a long way to go," Canova said. "We've got a lot of moving parts, but we're excited about this bunch. I think you come see us play in January, you're going to see a lot different than you saw yesterday and, Lord willing, a lot better."

With that in mind, Orange Beach ended its summer program June 18 with games at the Hoover Met against two Class 4A teams that played in the final four in March. Both were in Class 5A in 2026 but with new alignments this fall will be Class 4A.

One of those teams, Moody, had returning superstar Serenity Rutledge to contend with. As a sophomore, she became her school's leading scorer in basketball in both boys and girls categories. She's also a standout on the 2025 state champion flag football team.

"It's going to give us a good challenge because we've got a couple players that we feel like are going to be really good defensive players for us," Canova said before the matchup against Moody and Rutledge. "So it'll give them a really nice test to go against one of the best players in the state and just kind of see where we are."

Canova came away from those two games encouraged by the effort from his Lady Makos.

"We led throughout but ran out of gas in the second half," Canova said of the Moody game. "We finished the day with a convincing win over Eufaula, another playoff team. These young ladies are gritty, tough and resilient."

And, really, that's what Canova was looking for during this summer competition session. Girls who can and are willing to compete and give him a look into what type of players he has to build his team for the upcoming season.

"At yesterday's game (against Spanish Fort), of the eight girls that played in the varsity game, I want to say five of them did not even play basketball last year," Canova said. "And then we had another who played yesterday who was on the JV team last year. She couldn't play varsity after she moved in. There's a lot of new pieces with us this year that were not with the team last year."

One player who's not new and a returning leader is point guard Allie Roach. She just completed a stellar freshman year as the team's point guard and statistical leader in almost every category and is leading the way again scoring 16 points and grabbing rebounds against Spanish Fort.

"She's obviously an outstanding player," Canova said. "She's someone who wants to play basketball on the next level. She plays on a travel team in the offseason and puts in a lot of work. There's no doubt she's going to be one of our key players this year."

A newcomer to the team has been a force inside and played every game during the summer competition period: Rachel Schmotz. Along with a freshman starter from last year, Sloane Stephens, the pair has started every summer game.

"Rachel, who did not play last season, has been the biggest surprise so far. She has started every game this summer as an inside player and has been tremendous for us inside the paint," Canova said. "Sloane returns from being a starter on last year's team and is one of the team's best three-point threats."

Canova is also looking forward to the return of starter and three-point threat Arianna Santos, who injured a finger early in summer camp. She's expected to play a big role for the team in her senior season.

"She was here last season as the team's point guard has battled an injury for most of the summer," Canova said. "She brings a lot of experience and is another talented player who should bring positive minutes to the team this season."

Two others who impressed Canova with effort are softball players L.C. Robbins and Jayde Palmer, fresh off of winning the school's sixth straight state championship. The Spanish Fort "game" was supposed to be more of a scrimmage, but because Canova wanted a good look at Robbins and Palmer, among others, it ended up being more of a traditional game.

"In her first action, L.C. had six deflections and five steals," Canova said. "You're talking about a kid that's a good athlete that hadn't had a whole lot of basketball reps yet but still made an impact. Jade had eight rebounds, and five of them were offensive rebounds. Again, you're just talking about an athlete just going out there making plays, not quite in basketball shape yet but being able to impact a game in her first time out."

Another player Canova noted for her hustle was Addison Davis, who matched Palmer's eight rebounds including hustling for six on the offensive end. Canova said those are the types of things he and coach Amanda Neihoff look for in the summer sessions.

"That's just effort, energy, athleticism and just making impact plays," Canova said. "That was the encouraging thing for me was to see us, again, not having a whole lot of practice time together, really putting a lot of pieces out there for the first time together and just seeing people make some impact plays. It's always encouraging."

With an eye on making an impact in March.

"For me, I wanted to play Moody because I know we're not ready for Moody right now with this team, but I wanted our team to see what a final four team looks like and have that visual," Canova said. "We know what we've got to do and what we've got to work toward to reach that ultimate goal in March."