LYNN — The Tech girls basketball team saw its mix of positives and negatives last season.
At times, the Tigers played to their potential and did what they set out to do on the court. Other times, they fell short of their expectations and underwent growing pains.
Tech ended the season 9-11, one win shy of qualifying for the Division 4 North state tournament.
“I think that allows the underclassmen learn from it,” Tech coach Kaitlyn Wechsler said. “They know they have a job to do. They want to make a tournament run and hopefully go further. They know it’s going to be challenging but they’re looking forward to that, for sure.”
Tech graduated five seniors from last season’s roster and four of them were starters, including 2018-2019 leading scorer Arianna Anaya.
Back in the mix this winter are seven returners who played quality minutes last year. They are senior forward Alondra Sanchez, senior forward Iranis Julio, senior guard/forward Adrianna Torres, junior forward Nayelis Diaz, junior guard Niyo Mwajuma, sophomore guard Lilly Cote and sophomore guard Nyari Lane-Benjamin.
“The returning core’s a really hard-working group,” Wechsler said. “We’re not really young. We have a new group but they played behind the seniors last year. They’re going to go out there and get better on the court. They just need to get out there and start playing. They’ve worked hard over the summer, they took advantage of the minutes they got last year and they’re definitely looking forward to the opportunity to step up this year.”
Defense is where Tech prides itself.
“We try to play defensive,” Wechsler said. “We’ve never been a big time, halfcourt, scoring team. We like to play strong defense. We definitely have more size this year and pound it inside, just try to get more layups, offensive rebounds and just play quick and to the basket.”
Offensively, the Tigers face a challenge in replacing Anaya’s production. It’ll take a full team effort to make that happen.
“I don’t know if we have one-go to person,” Wechsler said. “I think we have five or six players that we’ll follow.
“On any given day it can be any one of our players that we’ll go to. We don’t have one or two players that we’ll go to, which could work out nice.”
Tech opened preseason practice last week. So far, so good.
“They’ve come in super excited, eager to run and get better,” Wechsler said. “They’re pushing themselves to get better. They know they don’t have that on-court experience. I think they’re excited to get going and play some games to present their hard work on the court.”
Tech opens the season Friday (5:30) at Notre Dame Academy in Tyngsboro.
