2016 Spartan winter sports preview | Girls BasketballNew coach, same spirit:Lady Spartans work through early lumps, eye the long game

Published 1:30 am Monday, December 12, 2016

They might have been behind on the board, but Spartan Head Coach Henry Guterson said the Bainbridge High girls varsity basketball team is exactly where they want to be in the scheme of things.

The squad was coming together with every outing, he said late last week, and spirits were high despite two early season losses, including the first half of a doubly disappointing doubleheader Friday against the visiting Bishop Blanchet Braves, which also saw the boys team on the wrong end of the final score in the night’s second game.

“We want to play our best basketball in late January, early February,” Guterson, in his first year as head coach, said. “That’s when we want to play at our top level.

“We’re on schedule. We’ve come a long way since the first day of tryouts.”

The varsity roster boasts at least two more fresh faces along with the new coach, with ninth-graders Kendall Havill and Caitlin Slattery joining the ranks of staple Spartan returners like senior co-captains Makaila Deen, Taylor Tye and Kiera Havill.

Also, the 2016 Spartan bench boasts juniors Morgan Lassoff and Mia Peeples and sophomores Grace Carson, Marianne Milander and Malia Peato.

The attitude of the team this year was neither all work nor play-oriented, Guterson said.

“It’s somewhere in the middle,” he laughed. “I think overall they’re fun to be around.

“They encourage each other,” he added. “They cheer each other on well. It’s a lot of fun for us all.”

As to the captains, all three four-year vets of the program are working to assist the new coach in establishing his own atmosphere. Guterson said he relies on the top trio primarily to set the mood of the team and be an example for the younger players.

“I look to them to keep things positive and encourage their teammates and talk to me,” he said. “We have a real honest dialogue back-and-forth. What’s going well? What do we have to work on? [They] keep things even.”

The BHS squad was barely bested (44-37) in their first outing, at home on Nov. 30 against Port Angeles, before taking to the court to host the Braves, who got on the board first Friday and led for most of the contest on their way to a 59-23 victory.

After seeing the visitors up 2-0 right away, the Spartans came back to reclaim the top spot and lead with about seven minutes left in the first half. They were still out ahead 8-6 with 3:40 remaining, but were outpaced quickly and trailed 24-8 by the first moments of the second quarter.

The Braves built a 35-12 advantage going in to the second half of the game, and were able to maintain a solid cushion for the rest of the night.

Things went well enough at the start for the Spartans, Guterson said, but accuracy remained a fly in the eye of the team’s offensive game.

“We came out really well in the first quarter,” he explained. “We kept getting good looks there for a while, but we couldn’t put them in the hoop. It’s hard to win and score points when you can’t make a shot.”

The coach praised Blanchet as well.

“They’re a tough team,” he said. “They’re a very, very good team.”

Even if the scores did not come out in their favor, Guterson said the first games were both a win in his book of a different — maybe even more important — type at this early season stage.

“When I look at a game, I’m looking at: A, did we win? B, did we play well? and C, did we get better?” he said. “We didn’t win the first two games but [in] both games we played well, or at times we played well and we showed we can play well. And we’re getting better. That’s the goal in these games. It’s going to be a project.”

Overall, Guterson said he was most pleased with the team’s tenacity and their adept willingness to roll with change, including his own arrival and learning new schemes.

“We’re competing every play and we’re getting better,” he said. “It’s been great.

“Everything’s new and so it’s going to be a process and it’s going to take some time before we hopefully play at our top level. We’re going to get there.”

The Spartans will next play at home at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16 against Cleveland.