Shorthanded Raiders basketball team shows promise at start
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
In Tuesday’s season opener, Hun School girls’ basketball coach Bill Holup got a glimpse of what his team can be this year.
Now he just needs an opportunity to see what the Raiders will be like at full strength.
Playing without a pair of key players, Hun battled Abington Friends to a 31-31 tie late into the third quarter before the Kangaroos went on 12-0 run to pull away for a 54-38 win.
”Amber (Bourke) has been out for two weeks,” said Holup of his junior guard. “Once we get her back hopefully we’ll be OK. The effort is there and the talent is there. We just couldn’t make our shots and we’re living and dying on the perimeter right now and we died by it today. We were tired and our shots were short.”
The Raiders return a solid nucleus and also have some talented newcomers in the mix as they look to improve on last year’s 10-11 season.
Senior captains Erica Dwyer and Janelle Mullen are back along with Bourke and senior guard Jess Johnson. Newcomers include post-graduate Maiya Rawlinson, who will be out of the lineup for a few more weeks, as well as juniors Maura Kelly, Lindsay Ruddy and Alexis Geoke, and sophomores Julie Fassl, Clare Moloney and Mia Cura. Freshman Kendall Dandridge rounds out the roster.
”We’re going to be solid,” Holup said. “We obviously have room to improve. This was just our first game and I think we have room to improve. But I think we have a nice team with some good veteran players and some nice young additions. Once we all mesh together and everybody understands what we need to do whether it is offensively or defensively, we’ll be fine.”
In the opening loss, Mullen led the offense with 22 points, while Dwyer and Moloney added five points apiece. But the Raiders were able to connect on just four of their 23 shots from three-point range, which hurt their chances.
The schedule, as usual, is a tough one. Hun will host Friends Central today and play at St.Andrew’s on Saturday. In addition to their Mid-Atlantic Prep League schedule, the Raiders will face the likes of Penn Charter, Life Center Academy, Immaculate Conception and Trenton Catholic.