by Darcy Gervais
Staff Writer

This season, WA Varsity Girls’ Basketball welcomes nine new members to the team led by coach Russel Coward. The new members are juniors Rachel Cloutier and Kelsey Stanvick, sophomores Christina Nowak, Meghan Kibblehouse, and Casey Doremus, and freshmen Hannah Hackley, Sam Hyslip, and Rebecca and Cathryn Sennott.

All of these new, fresh members will be replacing the nine seniors who went off to college this fall. Those seniors include former captain Asia Ewing who now plays at Stonehill College in Divison 2 as well as Allie Boyle who also plays at Connecticut College in Division 3.

Coach of Girls' Basketball, Mr. Coward

When asked whether or not he thought that the team would have a good chance at being successful this year, Coward responded, “I’m hopeful we’ll make it to the state tournament. The last two years we made semi-finals. There’s a small chance that it could happen this year, but anything can happen.”

Coward always tries to motivate his players by any means necessary. He likes them to stay focused but at the same time remain excited and fired up.

“I try to make practices as fast paced and intense as possible. I try to do a lot of different drills to keep players focused.”

Like all sports teams, WA Girls’ Varsity Basketball has some tough competition ahead of them.

“Our biggest rival is Acton. Lincoln-Sudbury and Newton South are going to be very good this year, so they will be very difficult for us to beat,” Coward said.

We have yet to see how the current WA Girl’s Basketball team ranks among the competition.