Alondra Sanchez goes up for a layup during Friday’s practice.
At least coach Kaitlyn Wechsler hopes so.
“Our goal is to win 10 games,” Wechsler said. “We don’t want to settle for anything less than that.”
Before anyone wonders why just 10, and not 15 or even 20, consider the Tigers won just three games last season. But Wechsler hope the girls learned some lessons from the rough season and are ready to apply them this year.
“We have a nice core group of seniors coming back,” she said. “And we’re mixing that with another nice group of sophomores and freshmen. We have some leadership, and some nice new youth coming in.”
Leading scorer Jamila Constantine is back, and will alternate between guard and forward.
Guard Malvelis Hernandez “is really my defensive go-to. She’s a hustler, and she’s the heart of our defense. She starts it and runs it.”
Third on the list of returning seniors is forward Annmarie Teixeira.
“She kind of does all the little things. She’s scrappy, plays defense, scores when we need her to score … she does the little things that go unnoticed. She’ll be a leader by example for the young kids.”
Wechsler is very excited about freshman Alondra Sanchez.
“She’s going to be a bigtime player,” she said. “I’m very excited that she’s going to be able to play with these seniors. She’s just a natural-born basketball player, and I’m really looking forward to coaching her.”
Sanchez will probably play both forward and guard as well.
Wechsler hopes that transfer student Arianna Anaya, a sophomore, can pick up the slack at point guard, which is one of the few positions (rebounding forward being the other) about which she wasn’t sure coming into tryouts.
“I think she’ll fit in nicely with the rest of the team.”
Michayla Lawrence, also a sophomore, is expected to fill the rebounding forward slot.
“(Lawrence) moved up from junior varsity to varsity. She’s strong, athletic and fast, and she’s probably going to be a big-time rebounder for us. She can jump too. She’ll see a lot of playing time for us.”
Wechsler admits winning 10 games could be a challenge.
“I have a really good group of girls who committed and who are on board with what I’m looking for,” she said. “When they do step up and take on that challenge, we have a chance to do good things.”
Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].