PEABODY — New and young will be the names of the game for the Peabody girls basketball team this upcoming season.
Last season, the Tanners finished 14-8 and earned a berth in the Division 1 North state tournament. Peabody ousted Waltham in the first round but fell short to Woburn in the quarter finals. All in all, Tanners coach Stan McKeen feels that his program took a step forward last winter.
“We had 10 seniors on our team and a very strong group of starters,” McKeen, who also coaches the boys soccer team at Peabody, said. “They played well all season. We had a good bench of contributors. We lived up to the talent that we had. Woburn was a loaded team and they beat us but it was a good season.”
The tough part will be moving forward this season after losing those 10 seniors to graduation. Gone are the talents of Alyssa Alperen, Melissa Gray, Nene Onwuogu and Katie Wallace, all of which were major contributors to last season’s success. Gray’s currently playing on the women’s basketball team at Westfield State.
“It was a good, talented bunch of kids,” McKeen said. “They were all nice kids. Even the kids that didn’t play as much helped us build a family-oriented team. They were a great group to coach.”
Of the 14 players from last season’s squad, only four are returning this winter. Of those four returners, the lone starter from last year’s group is forward Catherine Manning. A junior, Manning will lead a nucleus that also includes juniors Liz Zaiter (center), Kristina Rossignoll (guard), and seniors Jordan Muse (point guard), and Serena Laro (small forward).
Muse and Laro will captain the team.
“They have some experience,” McKeen said of his returning core. “That’s probably what we’re going with to start the season, those five. We have a young team of sophomores and a freshman behind them. It’s a rebuilding year but our goal right now is to make the state tournament.”
McKeen believes the strength of this season’s team will be its talent in the post. With Manning and Zaiter leading the way in the paint, the Tanners will look to build from there.
“Catherine and Liz have good skills,” McKeen said. “Our strength is going to be around the basket with size. We lost a lot of production it terms of scoring. We have to find some scoring, and I’m hoping the people down low, along with the rest of our team, are able to contribute.”
Inexperience will be Peabody’s biggest hill to climb this winter.
“We’re going to have to be strong at guard but we have inexperience,” McKeen said. “I think that’ll be crucial this year. I’m hoping the girls that start, and the girls on the bench, are able to contribute.”
McKeen foresees a competitive Northeastern Conference, per usual. With the addition of teams from the Greater Boston League merger, the Tanners will square off against each of the other 15 teams in the NEC once. Peabody also has a tough slate of non-conference opponents on its schedule.
“We’re playing everybody once so that’s 15 games with the other 15 teams in the league,” McKeen said. “I kind of liked that we were playing everybody twice. That’s the way we did it on the boys soccer team and it was competitive. We have a tough non-league schedule. We have to play in the Woburn tournament and that’s always good. We have to somehow squeeze out 10 wins.”
The Tanners began practices last week and McKeen likes what he has seen thus far. He plans for his team to take a practice-by-practice, game-by-game approach as the season takes its course.
“We’re trying to instill a new offense with a different group of players,” McKeen said. “It’s a matter of re-stocking and trying to find a system that’ll work. It’s going to be a work in progress.”
Peabody begins the new season on Dec. 15 when the Tanners visit Revere.
