Carlynton girls go into season with small, inexperienced roster

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, December 2, 2017 | 2:06 AM

The story of the 2017-18 Carlynton girls basketball team nearly was a blank page.

Between heavy graduation losses and girls participating in club sports, Cougars coach Frank Zebrasky rarely had more than four girls show up for offseason workouts. Zebrasky often had to fill in as the fifth player to run through plays.

So the four regulars — sophomores Jada Lee, Angelicah Diallo and Haley Williams and freshman Amanda Masdea — scoured the halls of the high school to try to recruit players. Even if they were short on basketball experience, Zabrasky wasn't going to turn them away.

His roster, which Zebrasky said is by no means final, contained 11 players as of the end of November. All were freshmen and sophomores, and there's no guarantee all of them will remain once the regular season tips off.

It's a startling turn for a team that went to the WPIAL Class 3A semifinals and PIAA quarterfinals last season. But Zebrasky, a veteran of the coaching ranks, isn't going to make excuses. He said he will work with what he has and make the best of it.

“The words we're using is: Just because we're young, that's not going to give us a reason to not be successful,” he said. “We're going to be young, and we're going to look to grow throughout the season and see what happens.

“We're not going to go out on the court and hold up a white flag, that's for sure.”

Lee gives Zebrasky a player to serve as the cornerstone. Except for a couple games missed because of injury, Lee played every night and averaged nearly 11 points.

Diallo worked her way into the starting lineup by the end of last season and averaged 5.2 points. At 5-foot-10, she will be the Cougars' tallest player, but that doesn't mean the team will lack size.

Williams is 5-9, and freshman Ela Aydin also is 5-9. Zebrasky said Aydin “plays a little bit bigger” than that.

As if trying to nurture a patchwork team isn't enough of a challenge, Zebrasky must figure out a way for the Cougars to stay competitive in a tough Section 3-3A. Sitting at the top of this rugged heap is two-time defending WPIAL champion Bishop Canevin, which knocked Carlynton out in the WPIAL and state playoffs last winter.

Zebrasky also expects Avonworth and Shady Side Academy — “They were playing as well as anyone at the end of the year,” Zebrasky said of Shady Side — to be improved. In order to stay in games, Zebrasky said he might have to “get creative.”

“We expect to do as well as we can for as long as we can,” he said. “When we play better teams, they're going to try to force the issue on us, and we're going to have to be disciplined enough to play at the pace we want to play at.

“We're going to have to force people to defend us versus us having to defend them. If it takes us a little time to get a quality shot, then we will.”

If there is an upside to the challenges ahead, it will be the prospect of the young players having time to jell. If Zebrasky can have a consistent number of players on a game-in, game-out basis and keep their interest in basketball, the future could be bright.

“This team has the potential to grow together,” Zebrasky said. “That's the fun part.”

Chuck Curti is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at ccurti@tribweb.com or via Twitter @CCurti_Trib.

Tags: Carlynton