As the Thanksgiving long weekend comes to an end, Monday holds the promise of the exciting winter sports season. Girls basketball is among the many teams holding the first day of tryouts on the 29th. After the strange pandemic season of 2020, four seniors- Jessie Ianelli, Carly Hedstrom, Brooke Dougherty, and Kiki Fossbender, are excited to see what is in store for them in their final high school season.

“I am really excited to see the underclassmen at tryouts this week. Right now there are six seniors on the team and we are the only returning varsity players. It’s going to be a rough first couple [of] weeks as we try to get the underclassman up to speed at the varsity level,” Dougherty said.

Last year, head coach- Coach Greco, only took returners for the team. This year is a very different story.

“The six of us have been playing together for the past 10 years. It’s like we have telepathy on the court. I’m curious to see what the chemistry is going to be like adding in new players,” Dougherty continued.

Girls basketball tryouts consist of mostly game speed drills, scrimmaging, and at the end of the day, the infamous “ladder drill.”

“The ladder is basically multiple suicide drills in a row. You run down the court and back and the distances increase each time. Everyone always dreads the ladder,” Captain Carly Hedstrom said.

The seniors and coaches have been running open gym two or three times a week in the last couple of months to prepare underclassmen for the season.

“Everyone is nervous. Even the four-year varsity returners are nervous before tryouts. I don’t want to be trite and tell the underclassmen to not be nervous, but everyone has been preparing for this, and all you can do now is just go in and leave everything on the court,” Ianelli explained.

After tryouts, the winter season quickly picks up, with practices and games beginning in the same week.

“I think the team is definitely going to do well this year on and off the court,” Fossbender said.

“The team is small so we all get very close during the season. The bonds formed are unbreakable.”

For these seniors, the upcoming season comes with quite a bittersweet feeling.

“I’ve been looking forward to this season since I was a freshman. I am so excited to be playing with the girls I grew up with and so thankful for everything this sport has given me,” Hedstrom said.

This season will be the end of most of the girls’ 10-year basketball careers.

“I don’t think it has fully hit me yet. This journey with my best friends has come to an end,” Dougherty added.