Much is made about how youth can hold back varsity teams in high school sports, but the grade distribution of a roster doesn’t determine a season. Take the ADM girls basketball team, which has only three seniors on its roster this season but which got significant contributions from underclassmen last season.

Those underclassmen now have a full year of varsity under their belt, which allows them to play above their grade. One such player is sophomore Sydney Bertman, who was fourth on the team with 7.7 points per game and lead ADM in rebounding last season as a freshmen.

Bertman was also one of ADM’s most efficient players last season, shooting over 52 percent. With such an impressive freshman campaign, one might wonder just how good she can become.

“Very good, actually. She was one of the most impressive players I saw this summer, just in the open court, she played undersized down low but she can handle it because of her athleticism,” ADM head coach Corey Schneider said. “There’s going to be a lot of responsibility placed on her shoulders this year, and hopefully she can carry that responsibility and really contribute to our team positively.”

Bertman gets some of her athleticism from playing volleyball, for which she’s also on the varsity team. She said basketball was her first love, however. And as Schneider alluded to, Bertman is capable of playing both on the perimeter and in the low post.

She said she wants to be more of a leader this year, and embraces her role as a utility player of sorts.

“I really like that I can do both,” Bertman said. “I would have liked to play more guard last year so I can just use my speed more, but [former ADM head coach Brett] Watson explained to me that he liked me at post because I was guarding slower people and I could get around slower defenders.”

How Bertman and the rest of the roster fit together will start to become clearer after Saturday, when ADM scrimmages three teams at Johnston.