As the girls high school basketball season gets underway, there are quite a few local teams making adjustments this season.
One of those is South Hadley, who had a season to remember last year. The Tigers made it all the way to the Class B Western Mass Final and made a deep postseason run in the Division 4 MIAA state tournament, winning their way to the state semifinal game before dropping a heartbreaking four-point loss to Amesbury.
It’s a new look for South Hadley this year – the Tigers lost leading scorer Olivia Marion, along with Talia Uribe, a Gazette first-team All-Star last season. Meg Carey also transferred to Williston, leaving the Tigers with three big pairs of shoes to fill.
Luckily, the Tigers have some players who are more than up to the task. South Hadley will look mainly to players like senior Alex Jackson, Kacie Levrault and Drew Alley to step up in the way, along with their sophomore class. The team is still feeling the sting of that close loss to Amesbury in the state semis, and it lit a fire under them this year.
“I think the loss in Amesbury last year motivated all of us to get back and just go full speed through the whole season and try to win it all,” Jackson said.
Head coach Paul Dubuc will miss his seniors, but he knows he has a lot of experience returning, along with talent from his younger class. So far, his team has looked fast and furious, charging up and down the court sometimes too quickly for their own good. But that’s just how he wants them to be.
“I’ve got eight girls who went to the state semis last year, so I love them. The sophomores, they may have not played a lot last year, but they were in the middle of everything. And they’re really good,” Dubuc said. “We’d rather err on the side of going too fast than going too slow. That’s how we practice.”
Northampton is grateful to have its starting point guard back in action this year. Actually, grateful might be an understatement.
Last year, then-freshman Brianna Heafey went down with an ACL tear late in the season, leaving Northampton without one of its key players. This year, she’s back for the Blue Devils, already leading the team in points and making an impact right away, though she’s not yet at full capacity.
“We’ve got our leading point guard coming off an ACL injury that’s less than eight, nine months…it’s going to be a month or two before she’s back to normal,” Northampton head coach Perry Messer said. “We’re happy we’ve got her back out there playing.”
On the surface, it doesn’t seem like Amherst is missing much – graduating one senior is usually a positive for a program. But the Hurricanes graduated 1,000-point scorer Delaney MacPhetres last season, leaving a monumental hole for the team to fill.
“We’re learning to play a little bit of a different way without Delaney,” Amherst head coach Ralph Loos said.
Luckily, there’s more than enough players capable of stepping up, and the Hurricanes look just as strong as they did last year. They’ll rely on a strong senior class, led by Tessa Kawall, Audrey Bowen and Sophie Higham, along with younger players like Niyama Adadevoh and Zola Higham. It’s a special year for Loos, who started his journey as head coach at Amherst when this senior class were freshmen.
“I started this journey with this senior class four years ago, and it is my mission to have them end the way they deserve to end. They’ve really changed what Amherst basketball was for a long time,” Loos said. “We’re trying to set a tone that this is a different kind of team, and a different kind of program.”
Also missing a 1,000-point scorer is Holyoke this season. The Purple Knights graduated storied basketball star Yamaya Perez, along with fellow senior mainstays Kleriz Matos and Asha Zayas; Holyoke graduated a whopping six seniors, nearly half of its varsity roster.
Luckily, they have a new pair of seniors ready to take the reins this year. Fellow 1,000-point scorer Biana Ortiz is back for the Purple Knights, as is Ashley Vazquez, who should hit the milestone if she stays healthy. Head coach Andréa Enright is thrilled for her dynamic duo to step into their full potential this season.
“They’re really team first. So they definitely passed up a lot of their own scoring opportunities last year for what was best for the team,” Enright said. “Even though we graduated a ton of experience and a ton of points, I do look for them to take on more of that, and I don’t think that that is a stretch for either one of them. I think for the two of them, they’re ready to go and be ‘the ones.’”
Ortiz missed the first two Holyoke games with an injury, but she should be back in the Purple Knight’s next contest, said Enright.
Three local teams will have new coaches this season. Granby’s girls team will be led by Megan Szlosek, a former basketball player for the Rams herself. Hampshire’s team will be coached by Sydney Cloutier and Hopkins Academy snagged former long-time Hampshire coach Amy Cyr.
Cyr led the Raiders for nine seasons before taking a short break from coaching. Now she’s back and excited to be with Hopkins this year.
“I live in Hadley and my children go to school at Hopkins. They are just amazing — hard-working, polite, respectful young people who want to be coached and want to work hard. So, who wouldn’t want to coach in a situation like that?” Cyr said. “It’s kind of like new dynamics and new coaches all together with some early games, but it’s a long season and we’re just gonna keep working.”
Easthampton is starting this season much like it started last year.
The Eagles rolled to a blistering start last year with a 15-game winning streak before a defeat against Lee ended their tear.
Easthampton has won all three of its opening contests against West Springfield, Hampshire and Pioneer Valley. How far will they be able to take it this season? Only time will tell.