PEABODY — Coming into the 2017-2018 season, the Peabody girls basketball team faced an abundance of question marks. The 2016-2017 team graduated a talented senior class that left this year’s squad with just one returning starter. With new faces up and down the roster, Tanners coach Stan McKeen knew there’d be challenges throughout the year.
Despite the changes and inexperience, Peabody didn’t make any excuses. The Tanners went 8-12 in the regular season, falling two wins shy of earning a berth in the state tournament.
Although the Tanners didn’t earn a bid in the tournament, McKeen viewed the season as a success.
“To win eight games and finish 8-7 in the NEC was an accomplishment considering how little experience we had going into the season,” McKeen said. “Our non-conference schedule had the teams we had played in the past like Masco, Woburn and Chelmsford at the Woburn tournament and Danvers a second time. Danvers was about as good as they have been,so we didn’t take an easy route. I am so proud of the way that these girls never quit. Their effort was outstanding. We needed to win our last four games to make tournament and won the first two, but lost those two games at Woburn.
“Honestly, it should not have come down to the last two games as we gave away a couple of games that we had,” McKeen added. “Still, to win eight games with the experience we had going into the season was a success”
Award winners for the Tanners at Monday’s banquet were Kristina Rossignoll, Frank Wiggin Award; Serena Laro and Jordan Muse, Coaches Awards; Catherine Manning, Team MVP Award.
Rossignoll averaged 5.6 points per game this season in her second year of varsity ball. She scored a season-high 13 points in a must-win game against Gloucester late in the season to help keep the Tanners’ tournament hopes alive.
Laro, who also captained last fall’s volleyball team and and was a Moynihan Lumber nominee in December, played two years of varsity ball. She averaged 4.5 points and 5 rebounds per game Muse also played two years of varsity hoops. A NEC all-star, she averaged 6.2 points per game and was second on the team in 3-pointers (13). She scored in double figures in four games and had a season-best 14 points against Malden.
“She took on a big role this as point guard and played a tremendous role for us,” McKeen said. “She broke her nose in the Everett game, missed two, maybe three games yet showed how tough she was coming back for the last two games before having surgery.”
Manning, who was the only returning starter this year, averaged a team-high 11.4 points per game and scored 10 or more points in 14 of the Tanners’ 20 games this year, including the Medford game when she scored a season-high 24 points. She also averaged 13.2 rebounds per game and hit 67 percent of her free throws, making 110 of 167 attempts. Her efforts were rewarded with selection to the NEC all-conference team. She was also a Moynihan athlete nominee in January and February.
“She played 95 percent of all minutes in all games and had the heart of a lion,” said coach Stan McKeen. “For her size, what she did for us was incredible and the fact that she was second on the North Shore in rebounds and ninth in scoring speaks volumes about her toughness. She took a beating this year.”
Peabody also selected its captains for the 2018-2019 season at the banquet. The Tanners will be captained by Manning and Rossignoll. They’ll succeed this past season’s captains, Laro and Muse.
