Swampscott girls hoop has some big shoes to fill

When the Swampscott girls basketball team begins its season at Gloucester on December 14th, it will be a new animal for Big Blue fans to get used to.For the first time in four years, there won’t be the whirling dervish that was Kara Gilberg to put on a show for the crowd. Gilberg and her 20 points per game have graduated, along with four other seniors, leaving coach Jack Hughes with some rather immense holes to fill.”We have a lot of kids who will be getting their shot to play this year,” Hughes said. “We’ve gotta do some rebuilding obviously, but we have nine players back in all and some of them are going to be put to the test for the first time.”Swampscott won 11 games in the regular season a year ago despite Gilberg missing six games because of mononucleosis. They then knocked off Bedford in the opening round of the Division 3 North tournament before running squarely into archrival Pentucket in a quarterfinal loss.”It’s amazing how many times we’ve played Pentucket in recent years,” Hughes said. “They’ve become a pretty big rival for us.”The Big Blue will look to senior captains Lisa Gambale and Megan Shea to help provide the leadership on the floor this year. Another captain, Christy Mazareas, is out for a few weeks because of injury.”Our captains have all been around and will be very good leaders,” Hughes said.Ara Talkov, Nikki Laskaris and Caroline Murphy all were starters a year ago and all three are back in the fold in 2010 as a part of the nine returning varsity players.The Big Blue begin their season in the Malden Tournament and will be a part of the Spartan Classic to close the season. In between, they will face a much-improved Northeastern Conference/South this year.”Everyone in our division, I think, will be a little bit better. It has always been a tough league,” Hughes said.One thing the Big Blue will have going for it is the experience of its captains and returnees. Something that the veteran coach knows will go a long way to helping his team through the early part of the season.”This is a good group with really good chemistry. I swear they could come out and run a practice if I didn’t show up,” Hughes joked. “They are very mature and smart.”