Girls’ basketball is looking forward to the new season, and they plan on raising the bar with their three new coaches. While just three years ago, the team didn’t have enough players to form a single roster, they started this season with almost 20 girls at the first practice. The Captains– senior Vicky Escalante, junior Elisabye Slaymaker, and sophomore Natalie Daskal– plan to work with yet another new coaching staff– there’ve been three different head coaches over the past four years– to make this season the best one yet.

Lauryn Rauschenberger, a sophomore who played on the team as a freshman, spoke about the positive progression of the program. “When I was in seventh grade, there was no high school girls’ basketball team at all,” she said. “There just weren’t enough girls who wanted to play.” With a proud look on her face, Rauschenberger added that last season, they almost “went past regionals, which was crazy considering it was our first season in a while having a varsity team.”

The team has struggled with coaches in the past, according to Daskal. She said, “We’ve had very few coaches who fully understand where we’re at as a team and have maintained a good balance of intensity and fun.”

Escalante, who has been playing since her sophomore year, has experienced the turnover of coaches first-hand. She said, “The constant change of staff on this team has created a huge disconnect between players and coaches.” The team hoping that the new coaches will stay for a while and, with time, truly understand the dynamic of the team.

According to Rauschenberger, the lack of a long term coach who has been holding the team back and making it harder for them to reach their highest potential. “It would be nice to have a coach that first day already knows what you have to work on as a team to start getting better,” Rauschenberger said. “Instead, we have to get to know these new coaches over the course of the season.”

Escalante is jealous of other situations. “Programs like soccer at Parker have really solid coaching staffs while,” Escalante said, “the girls’ basketball program is still trying to find someone who fits the team.”

One goal for the season, according to several, from many players is to have more people come to their White Out game, which takes place on December 2. In recent years, the boys’ basketball team has comprised the majority of their supporters.

Escalante also wants to foster strong relationships through new traditions. “It is easy to become really close with the girls when the team is so small,” Escalante said, “but I haven’t seen that happen in the past years, which I want to change.”

Alix King, a first-time head coach last year, is well liked, and the team looks forward to continue working with her. According to Escalante, the team is looking for more coaches that– like King– can maintain the balance of competitiveness and fun. Escalante said,“King had a really good balance of listening to us while coaching us competitively at the same time.”

Varsity assistant coach and Upper School Dean of Student Life Christian Bielizna, JV head coach Flynn Okner, and JV assistant coach Labrenthia Murdock-Pearson are three new additions to King’s coaching staff.

Escalante didn’t know who Okner or Murdock-Pearson were before the first practice. “The staff for this year seems to still be in a disarray,” Daskal said. “I think Assistant Athletic Director Laura Gill might be coaching but I am not really sure.”

King is looking to change things up in practice. She wants to run faster practices and teach the girls to hustle. She wants to create a team that “scores most of their points on fast breaks.” “If we can beat the other teams up and down the court, we have a better opportunity of making those easy shots,” she said. “Hustle and hard work go a long way.”

One thing that the coaching staff is not short on is experience. Okner coached soccer for the Special Olympics and assisted with 8th grade field hockey. Bielizna has coached for two college level men’s basketball teams including a volunteer assistant coach at Wesleyan from September 2004 through April 2005 and the assistant coach at Bard from September 2003 through November 2004. Murdock-Pearson played college basketball for the Lewis University Flyers, and was named the “News Sun Athlete of the Year” during her 2012-13 season, and is the third leading scorer of all time.

“Labrenthia always comes in prepared, explains things in a clear and concise way so that all the girls can understand her,” Bielizna said. The new staff plans to use King’s experience with the girls, Murdock-Pearson’s experience with the game, and Bielizna’s and Okner’s experience with coaching, to push the girls this season.