Cranbury resident is thriving under Inzano’s leadership
By: Justin Feil
Eliza Stasi has seen a lot of changes in four seasons with the Princeton High girls’ basketball team. The Cranbury resident has found some of the best changes early in her senior season.
Stasi is playing more than ever under first-year head coach Nikki Inzano, the third varsity coach the Little Tigers have had in four seasons. PHS won its first game of the season, 31-27, over Westfield in the War of the Worlds Tournament on Monday, then finished sixth out of eight teams after a 56-30 loss to East Brunswick in the fifth-place game Tuesday.
"I’ve seen some improvement with our new coach," Stasi said. "I feel so much more comfortable. She’s so considerate. We had a walk-through before our game Tuesday, but before that she asked me if I thought it would be OK with the team.
"There’s a totally different tone. I’m not totally adjusted yet, but things are clicking a bit more than two years ago. It stinks that we’ve had to adjust to three different coaches. It’s a terrible feeling to walk in to a season with no summer practices like other teams had. It’s difficult, but she’s done a good job of understanding that."
Princeton, which came out of the tournament with a 1-4 overall record, hopes for continued improvement as it returns to Colonial Valley Conference play at West Windsor-Plainsboro High South 7 p.m. Tuesday. The Little Tigers are looking for their second win of the season. Last year, they lost their first 11 games, so picking up a first win so early in the season, in a hard-fought victory against Westfield, helps affirm that things are moving in the right direction.
"We definitely played defense well," Stasi said. "We ran our offense too. Defense made the difference. We seemed very together and everything clicked. There was a different feeling from the start of the game.
"We were pretty much ahead most of the game. At the end, it was scary. We seem to always lose games at the end. All of a sudden, things don’t work out. It was nerve-wracking to watch (Westfield) take foul shots at the end. We fouled them a couple times. It was too close for comfort."
Stasi gave the Little Tigers a big lift with a career-high 15 points, easily eclipsing her previous best of seven points that was matched three times last year.
"I was shocked with my game," said Stasi, who was the leading returning scorer coming into this season. "It shocked me to score 15. I don’t know where it came from, but I hope it stays."
Stasi has nearly doubled what she averaged last year, and part of her increased production comes from increased opportunity.
"We had so many guards last year," she said. "I’m playing pretty much the whole game now. Against Westfield, I didn’t sit out once. And I only came out a couple times (against East Brunswick). And the game before, I only came out when I cut my finger.
"I’ve had to adjust a lot to that. I didn’t have the stamina in the beginning."
It’s a problem that Stasi is happy to have. Stasi, who is looking into playing college softball, has earned the increased court time by developing her basketball skills each year. As a freshman, she played on the freshman team before rising to the junior varsity level as a sophomore. The last two seasons, she’s progressed at the varsity level. She’s come quite a ways since playing for the freshman team.
"My mom remembers me my freshman year sprinting to the basket and bouncing it off the backboard," Stasi said with a laugh. "I guess I’m more under control now. I’m still not totally comfortable with my shooting and I still need to work on my passing. But I made some shots against Westfield and East Brunswick."
Stasi’s memories from her freshman and sophomore seasons aren’t all laughing matters. As a senior, she’s tried to build a team atmosphere that is more inclusive than what she remembers from her underclassman years and more positive in outlook.
"After the first game," she said, "I thought we’d be so much better this year. I remember getting upset with the season a lot last year. It was hard for the seniors to get upset or help us out, they were so used to (losing). We have changed that around a lot. We are so willing to have the underclassmen come to us if they’re upset or if they have a problem. There’s no senior-underclassmen division. If that’s there, it’s going to divide the team more.
"All of the seniors, we were on the freshman team and we didn’t know the seniors well. I didn’t feel I got along as well with last year’s seniors as sophomore year. We want that to be better."
A big part of making the team tighter is ensuring that the entire squad has a similar mindset. Inzano has tried to instill a positive approach and Stasi and the seniors have taken the lead in adopting that attitude.
"Personally, me and the other three seniors have stayed positive as much as we can," Stasi said. "One of the other seniors and I got upset after we lost our second game and the other two picked us up. And some of the underclassmen comforted us. It’s kind of a family. Everyone understands it will be tough.
"We all came in and said we want to have fun this year. That’s what we said at the first team meeting. In the situation we’re in, that’s all we can do. We’re building the team for the underclassmen."
An early win in the War of the Worlds tournament proved to the Little Tigers that they can come out victorious in games this season, and after playing two other difficult opponents, they feel ready for the rest of the CVC schedule.
"We got stuck with two tough teams," Stasi said. "We won’t see them again, but they’ll be the level of some of the other teams we’ll play. It helped because we learned the glitches in our offense. We know what we have to do on defense now. It helped us more than anything, even though we lost."
Less than a month into the season, there have already been numerous changes for Eliza Stasi and the PHS girls’ basketball team. And with a tournament victory to show already, they’ve been for the better.