BEACON FALLS — The Woodland girls basketball teams heads into the season needing to replace three starters for the second year in a row.
That’s a tall order for any team.
The Hawks graduated 1,000-point scorer Morina Bojka, double-digit scorer Maddie Hupprich and low post player Jenna Pannone.
“Obviously losing Morina really hurts our offense,” said head coach Jess Moffo, who is in her seventh year at the helm and has assistant coach Joe Kmetz by her side. “But we have always been a strong defensive team and we are hoping to generate our offense off of our defensive effort.”
The Hawks have two senior captains, Haley Andrews and Eliza Smith, to lead the way. They are also the only seniors on the team.
“We are a young team with only two seniors,” Moffo said. “There may be some rough patches, but they are working hard and improving every day. As a team, if we can do the little things well we are going to be able to compete.”
Junior Hana Bojka and sophomore Jill Barbarito have the most experience of the returning underclassmen to help fill out the starting lineup.
“We have a lot of younger players,” Andrews said. “But our strength is we have speed and we have good skills, dribbling and handling the ball. We need to work on our rebounding skills and boxing out.”
“We are going to have to set the tone as far as leadership,” Smith added. “Even if we go through some ups and downs we need to keep the morale of the team. Those younger players are going to be looking to us to set that example.”
Woodland finished last season 9-11 and fell in the first round of the state tournament. The Hawks lost six games last year by five points or less. Moffo is hoping they can correct those mistakes and turn those close losses into wins.
The Hawks have a pair of younger players in sophomores Paige Resnick and Katlyn Sirowich who will be relied on to provide quality varsity minutes. Moffo has also been impressed by the development of four freshmen.
Freshmen Ava DeLucia and Elayna Beutel give the Hawks a bit of a height advantage down in the low post, and freshmen Joanna Emin and Natalie Miranda have the athleticism to be players who could contribute off the bench.
“You can’t teach height,” Moffo said. “Having that asset will definitely make us a more competitive team, especially since we will be able to compete in the low post. They challenge shots and make the shooters adjust their shots. That will help us out on the defensive end. We haven’t been the tallest team in the past, so this is a new addition to our game and it’s exciting to see how it pans out.”
Woodland gets the season underway on Tuesday at Derby. The Hawks will then have a week to prepare for their home-opener against St. Paul on Dec. 19.
