Girls basketball
By: Mike Molaro
By his own admission, The Pennington School’s girls basketball coach Dean Waters is as close to a perfectionist as can be. He demands a great deal from his team and tries to keep things in perspective.
So it came as no surprise that, despite a 6-3 record, Waters is focusing on areas in which his team needs to improve. With 11 days between games, the Red Raiders had a lot of time to iron out the kinks and rev up the engines for Thursday’s home game against perennial Colonial Valley Conference power Steinert.
Included in that preparation was Monday’s scrimmage with Peddie, which has won six consecutive Prep A titles.
"This is the first time we (the Red Raiders) have scrimmaged during the season," Waters said. "We tried to get a game for Monday, but we couldn’t work out anything. I talked with (Peddie head coach) Sean (Casey) and we agreed a scrimmage would do both teams good. We were both coming off vacations, and we felt the game would be better than a practice.
"Peddie is a very good team. They pressed us a lot. Sometimes we broke it, and sometimes we didn’t. That was one of the things we needed to work on and to see it against a team like Peddie is much more valuable than running it in practice."
Junior forward Gabby Wallace injured her ankle in the Peddie scrimmage and is listed as day-to-day.
"We (the Red Raiders) hope it’s nothing more than a sprain," Waters said. "Hopefully, she’ll be O.K. to go against Steinert."
To help the girls clear their heads of basketball, Waters gave his team five days off after competing in the Eastern States Christmas Invitational Tournament on Dec. 29. The Red Raiders resumed practices Saturday.
"It’s good for the girls to have the time off and get away from basketball for a while," Waters said. "They come back refreshed and recharged. The scrimmage also helped us quite a bit to get back into the routine."
One of Waters’ biggest concerns about this year’s squad is its inability early on to defeat quality opponents, especially setbacks against Lawrenceville on Dec. 10 and Hun on Dec. 18.
"We’ve been working on how to defeat the good teams," Waters said. "We’ve taken a couple of steps forward. I’m never satisfied and very tough to please. All aspects of our game can be better.
"We’ve had some strong individual performances this year, but nobody has done the job on a consistent basis. We haven’t put it together as a team."
Notes: Pennington visits Gill-St. Bernard’s on Saturday.

