Stephanie Fish is counting the days to Dec. 18, when she and her Brick Memorial High School girls basketball teammates line up for the opening tip at Toms River High School South.
“I can’t wait. I’m hoping to bring more to the team this year,” said the 5-foot-11 senior, who is playing in her fourth year on the varsity team.
Fish leads an experienced lineup that returns all but Kathryn Lamastra, who has embarked on a college career at Montclair State University. Fish, a forward, averaged eight points a game, the same as fellow senior Jess Ball, who is 5 feet 10 inches tall. Other senior returnees include point guard Kristen Brown, outside threat Nicole Cartier and Courtney Domalewski. The juniors include Jackie Caravella, the tallest starter at 6 feet, who scored six points and grabbed 10 rebounds a game last season, and Marissa Telerico, who showed some range in her shots when she moved up from the outside after she came up from the junior varsity late last season, and has good size at 5 feet 9 inches tall.
Fish is also excited that her younger twin sisters, sophomores Taylor and Elyse Fish, both 5 feet 9 inches tall, made the varsity roster.
“I think it’s awesome playing with them,” Stephanie said. “They’re like my best friends.”
Fish has been working on her ball handling and said her outside shooting has improved.
“I’m just fine-tuning things,” Stephanie said. Other players are looking to improve their outside shooting, to make up for the departure of Lamastra, who showed a deft touch from the perimeter.
“Things are going better than we thought,” said coach Rayna Post, whose team participated in the Albright College Camp and the Red Bank Regional Team Camp as well as fall workouts in the Brick Memorial gym. “This team has been together since middle school.”
“We’re doing a lot of individual work, and we’ve been together longer,” Fish said. “We’re really playing together.”
This is the final opportunity for the many seniors who toiled on the varsity the past two years, to surpass last year’s season — one of the Mustangs’ best — when they made the Shore Conference Tournament and reached the NJSIAA Tournament semifinals, losing to Montgomery in a 16-11 season.
Crystal Petraccoro is back coaching the junior varsity team, and Sara Perri is the new freshman coach, joined by Jessica Hermann, a Brick Memorial alumna.
“This is it,” Post said. “This is their year to shine. We should have a decent team and should be in the top three or four in [Shore Conference] A South.”
Making the postseason play is an assumption, but the ingredients are there for another memorable season.
“A South is very competitive, but if we have our head in the game and play to our full potential, we can do great things,” Fish said.