PDS girls’ hoops drops two to Prep A teams
By: Justin Feil
The Princeton Day School girls’ basketball team knew that there would be bumps on the road to Prep A competitiveness. Consider this week two of those bumps.
The Panthers lost, 65-33, to Lawrenceville on Wednesday, two days after falling to Hun, 59-32.
"We knew it was going to be tough," PDS coach Sue Repko said after the Hun game. "The question was going to be how well our offense was going to produce. If we couldn’t shut down Shantee (Darrian, Hun’s leading scorer), we wanted to shut down the other people. That didn’t happen.
"They played tough player-to-player ‘D.’ If Lexi (Cheshier, PDS’ leading scorer) went inside, she was doubled or triple-teamed. We needed some others to step up and take shots. We just never got in a rhythm."
Though this week was a rough one as PDS slipped to .500 at 10-10, Repko is concentrating on the positives, and there are plenty. For one, the Panthers have already doubled last year’s five-win season. They’ve come quite a ways since losing their season-opener in the Stuart Invitational to the host Tartans.
"As a team, our confidence has grown," said Repko, who is in her first full season at the helm. "I think it’s a matter of having a good core group of the team. They came together around the Pingry game a few weeks ago and it’s taken off from there."
PDS had won four of its last five games before losing twice this week. Cheshier led PDS with 15 points against Hun, and Mary Peters, who had missed a large portion of the season due to injury, returned in her fourth game back with eight points in the fourth quarter to be second-leading scorer against the Raiders. And while that output wasn’t there against Hun all game, it had helped PDS to several previous wins.
"Our offense started clicking," Repko said. "They started seeing that they could put together four quarters to win. We’ve also gotten some good defense. You don’t see it against a team like (Hun) that has so many people that can score, but it’s worked really well against the teams we’ve won against recently."
With most of the Panthers’ top contributors including Cheshier and second-leading scorer Marla Pfenninger coming back next season, there’s plenty to build on after such a turnaround season.
"It’s great that there’s been progress," Repko said. "We have to shake this off and go get that positive feeling back. It’d be nice to knock someone off. But I’d rather play them now when we’re playing better and we’ve built up.
"We’re going to work on boxing out. We need to continue to build. We’re winding down. Our last regular season game (was) Wednesday. I hope we can get back to where we’re winning."
That trick, as much as anything, has been as tough as implementing any offense or defense. Learning how to win has taken the Panthers time, but when they look back at their final mark, they’ll see plenty of victories to build on for the future.
"When I looked at our schedule, I thought that .500 or above was doable," Repko said. "Knowing last year we won five games, winning 10 games is a big jump. They’ve shown so much heart.
"It’s a lot to ask a team that had a season like last year to suddenly win. It’s been a great season. The kids have been positive and worked hard. We have to take that to the next game."