Mesh point

There is a handful of girls on the Briarwood Christian School varsity basketball team who have played together for several years.

They’ve learned to coexist on the floor, play off each other’s strengths and cultivate a bond that should prove fruitful in their final year competing alongside one another.

Anna Donohue, Morgan Hutchinson, Lauren Smith and Sophie Muir-Taylor are eager to make their final season their best. They even recruited Riley Coyne to join them this winter. Coyne is an exceptional third baseman on the softball team and played basketball in middle school.

“I expect that group to really be in charge,” head coach Jim Brown said. “They’re a quality group, they’ve been around a long time, they know what the program’s about. They’re all great young ladies and they’re good players. We’re going to put it out for them and give them a chance to have a senior year they’d like to have. We’re looking forward to incorporating [Coyne].”

Donohue and Hutchinson have taken on much of the ball-handling in recent years, and Smith has contributed greatly in the backcourt as well. Muir-Taylor missed much of last season and her reemergence should help tremendously. Coyne immediately becomes the Lions’ tallest player at 5-foot-10, so she will slot in at the center position.

MaryLane Graham is the team’s only junior and she started some last year, so she brings experience to the team. Then, there are two sophomore and three freshmen who will be making their first full-time jumps to the varsity program.

Brown said the “mesh point” for the team will be how the older, more experienced players and younger players come together as a unit.

“Our seniors are really good people, not just good players,” Brown said. “I really expect them to bring those younger players along. The younger players are basketball-savvy, so they don’t come into it just completely blindfolded.”

Anna Kay Heidepriem and Alex Smith are the two sophomores, and Caroline Mays, Maddie Vaughn and Emily Scott are freshmen who will be getting their first taste of high school ball.

On the court, the Lions plan to continue being sound defensively, as they employ their traditional tight man-to-man tactics. After all, that’s their “bread and butter.”

“I would hope that we would be a really strong defensive team,” Brown said.

In addition, there is hope that this year’s team can be more effective offensively with the ability to dictate the tempo of the game.

“I expect that we’re going to be better offensively,” Brown said. “I’d like us to be an up-tempo team, running up and down the floor, pushing it on the offensive end and playing hard on the defensive end and really getting after it.”

The goal at the outset for Briarwood is to make a run and win the Class 5A, Area 8 tournament, which would qualify the Lions for the state playoffs. But if that objective needs to be extended to something more aggressive, that would be fine, too.

“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Brown said. “Once you feel like you can achieve that, then you adjust as you go.”