By Chris Ferrick-Manley, Sports Co-Editor
The 2007-2008 season has been a rebuilding one for the Green Terror Women’s basketball team, having lost five seniors from last year’s 23-4 squad. They stand at 11-10 (10-5 in Centennial Conference play) following a 66-56 win on February 9 against the Ursinus College Bears.
Head Coach Becky Martin, in her 27th season at the helm, admits the team has a way to go to reach the level of recent years. She points to their youth and inexperience as key reasons that the team has been “taking some knocks.” “You can’t cheat the learning curve,” said Martin.
Martin is not considering this a lost season however as the Terror women are in the hunt for one of the final spots in the CC playoffs, which Martin always considers the goal entering the season.
“It’s gonna be a dogfight to the end but I think we’re up for the challenge,” said Martin referring to the team’s chances of reaching postseason play.
While she considers every remaining game critical, she specifically pointed to two road games—Dickinson and Gettysburg, keys in this year’s very balanced conference.
“The students and players are used to us winning 20 games a year,” said Martin. “It’s somewhat disappointing not to live up to that expectation.”
Courtney Gogolinski, one of two senior captains on the team also admits that this season would be more difficult than last year’s.
“We knew we were gonna have ups and downs this year,” Gogolinski said.
Gogolinski, who transferred from Lees-McRae in North Carolina before last year, thinks the team has made progress even if they have not won as many games as they would have liked. She specifically pointed to junior forward Lauren Wyble and sophomore center Ashley Lyles in making significant strides.
Robbin Gregg, a point guard and the other senior captain on the team echoes the view that that this team’s youthfulness would make it a rebuilding year.
“The record shows that everyone has had to step up their game,” Gregg said.
She believes that the rest of the year will be challenging and that the team will need to win some big games to make it into the CC playoffs.
While the team has over twice as many losses as they had last season, both Martin and Gogolinski believe that they have been competitive in many of the defeats, particularly a tough loss to the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays on January 24.
The final home game is February 16 against the Washington Shorewomen. Game time is 1 p.m.