Women's hoops gain over break

The Norwich University women's basketball team is making a strong final push as it heads toward the end of its season. This push can be attributed to the Cadets' improving young talent and crucial team bonding over the winter break, according to team members and coaches.

Tylita Butler, 19, a sophomore health science major from Saint Mary's County, Md., said the women's team was able to bond over winter break while the rest of the university was home enjoying the holidays.

"We got to go home for Christmas, we were home two weeks, then we came back to get back to work," Butler said.

Even though the team was not at home they still had home-cooked meals, and family style fun.

"We played basketball, capture the flag, watched ‘Jersey Shore'. We had team dinners, the moms would come over and bring dinner," said Butler. "Some of the girls are very local, within an hour or two and sometimes their families would come and bring us dinner."

With family located so close, a home game or away game can still mean it feels like a familiar atmosphere for the girls. Having the family at games is helpful to the development of this young team, because their talent-loaded youth is used to family watching and cheering as they play, according to Butler.

One local player, the starting point guard, Kristin Brown, 19, a sophomore majoring in health sciences from Williamstown, Vt., shared the comforts of home with her teammates.

"Another girl's parents made food, such as stuffed shells and then they kept it at my house, then my mom would heat it up and come over here," Brown said.

Head coach Mark Zacher is in his third season as the women's coach, and he says it's great having family at basketball games both home and away.

"It is good for the players because they also know they have the support of their family," said Zacher. "We have some parents who have not missed a game yet this year."

Zacher says that besides the family atmosphere, a key part of the bonding over winter break is that the girls could focus on only basketball.

"One of the benefits of being here over winter break is there is nobody else here, which means they bond even more together. Over winter break we have the luxury of focusing only on basketball because they don't have school-work or classes," Zacher said.

Junior guard Jessalyn Sweeney, 21, a physical education major from Stanfordville, N.Y., said that winter break not only allows for a clear head, but that the players see much more of each other than usual.

According to Zacher the team is relying a great deal on their youth this season. Only three girls had started a college game before the start of the season.

"We are very young and I am hoping that our younger players continue to step up and that we get consistent play so that we can compete in every game that we have," Zacher said.

The team's leading scorer, and presently second leading scorer in the Great North Eastern Athletic Conference (GNAC), is freshmen guard Aliah Curry. She has already won the GNAC Rookie of The Week twice, as well as earned a place in the Norwich record books, according to coach Zacher.

"She had a game in December where she hit eight three pointers in that game which ties a Norwich record, and she is capable of doing that on any given night," said Zacher. "She is a fierce competitor and tremendous shooter. Nothing but added improvement and good things await her in her career at Norwich."

Sweeney is impressed by what her young teammates have accomplished, especially because she has been in that situation before.

"We are glad they are stepping up and they are filling certain roles, it is great to see that," said Sweeney. "I played the most out of my freshmen class and I know it is scary when you come into college and you come into a sport you can be a little uneasy but I am glad they are stepping up."

"We also have Kelsey Lotti at the guard and Katrina Laidlaw down in the post," said Butler. "She is tall and developing well in the post, we have some strong upperclassmen post players who are definitely teaching her and bullying her around in practice to get her where she needs to be."

There is another member of this freshman class who is not playing because both of her feet were injured, Tory Kethro, 18, a freshman criminal justice major from Cape Cod, Mass.

"I am real excited about my class and what we will accomplish next season because Aliah is one of the best shooting guards we've gotten in a very long time along with Kelsey, who I have been playing on the same AAU team with since 4th grade," Kethro said.

The Cadets have been playing tough basketball and at times look really focused, but the young talent also comes with its growing pains.

"From this time last year to this year, we have lost 76 percent of our offense, and we have also lost an additional 74 percent of our rebounding," Zacher said.

The girls also commit a lot of turnovers. According to the coach, some of that is because they play a fast style of basketball, but there are still too many. Zacher said the team committed around 20 turnovers in the three-point loss to Albertus Magnus on Jan. 18, and he likes to keep that number under 15.

"In some situations, I think the turnovers are a correlation to the youth of the team, I have a lot of turnovers and decision-making is probably the biggest factor," said Brown. "Once we get more experience we can make better decisions and hopefully next year, and every game this year, we can improve."

"In our first five losses when we returned from break, four of them have been by a total of 16 points, an average of 4 points a game meaning we have been in games," said Zacher. "I tell the girls we are right at the pinnacle, we're just not getting over top of it, some of that is the youth and inexperience."

"Down the stretch we didn't perform well enough to win the game(s), we had an opportunity at the end when coach put us in the position to win the game," Brown said. "We just didn't make sound decisions, I guess we just learn from it and hopefully next game if we're put in a similar situation we will perform better."

The girls know what is at stake; if they play well and win in conference they can still make playoffs.

"We control our own fate right now because if we only lose one or two conference games from here on out we should make GNACs. We should go into each game and think it's a must-win game if we make playoffs," Brown said.

The Cadets got back on track with their second highest point total of the season, an 83-62 win over Anna Maria on Jan. 26.

Fasulo leads the GNAC in blocked shots and has looked strong in the past two games; she is a senior captain along with Karissa Doyon, and Kelsey Knapp. Perhaps enough strong play and leadership from older team members and excellent young talent can put the cadets in position to go on a late-season run with a long stretch of conference play left.

"We definitely need to try to win our conference games," Sweeney said. "We know what we have to work on and then as a team if we can just hone in on a few basic things I think we can finish up strong."