Season of change for St. Joseph girls basketball

By: HSSN Staff
Sunday, December 2, 2018 | 11:48 PM

The last two years for St. Joseph girls basketball team have been thrilling. A group of core players lifted the program to new heights, including back-to-back runs in the WPIAL playoffs and a spot in the PIAA tourney.

Times were good.

Now everyone is gone, including the coach. First-year coach Dennis Jones has taken over the reins of a program that has roughly 20 minutes of varsity experience returning from last season and a roster loaded with first-time players.

Times have changed.

“We’re 14 strong,” said Jones, who has also coached the St. Joseph girls volleyball team the past four seasons. “I have eight volleyball players. We’ll play junior varsity and varsity both, but we have no experience.”

The Spartans graduated a group of athletes who will go down as one of the best in the school’s long history. Alex Jones, Gia Angelo, Anna Swierczewski and Chloe Kurpakus were all three-sport standouts.

Couple that mass departure with the transfer of up-and-coming guard/forward Navaeh Ewing to Knoch, and the Spartans might be more green than their royal blue and red uniforms would suggest.

“We have two girls that played on the team last year,” Jones said.

And therein lies the issue for this year’s team: experience. Jones is not only teaching the basics of how to run a high school offense and defense, but he’s also stopping practice to go over some fundamental rules.

“These girls didn’t know what traveling was,” Jones said. “They thought that as long as you dribbled, you stopped and started dribbling before you moved again, that was legal. They didn’t realize that was traveling. That’s how rudimentary it is.”

It’s like déjà vu for Jones. Everything reminds him of when he started teaching the game to his daughter, Alex Jones. Alex was a four-year starter for the Spartans and is in her freshman season at Lycoming.

“I’m trying to teach them the things I tried to teach her the last 10 years,” Jones said.

It might not be as bad as it seems for the Spartans. Jones figured out how to communicate with his team early in the process.

“This place is largely academic,” Jones said. “It finally dawned on me, and I started talking to them (using) geometry (terminology).

Jones was putting in the offense, which is something the Spartans could struggle with early. The Spartans have a quartet of 5-foot-10 forwards, but Jones said they don’t yet understand how to play inside the paint. The Spartans have such good size, Jones said there’s a good possibility he could go with three forwards and two guards at some point in the season. Everything is predicated on how fast the Spartans can absorb the offense.

Junior Molly Coleman will run the point in the Spartans’ offense. Coleman is the only player who has played varsity minutes.

Another junior in guard Kimberly Halligan will be Coleman’s first look. At the moment, Halligan is the Spartans’ best shooter and is quick with the ball.

Jones had high praise for freshman guard Stella Swanson. He said if things go right, Swanson could draw Division I interest before her high school playing days are over.

“It’s just pass and cut and make it crazy,” Jones said describing the offense. “I’ve put in a couple of set inbound plays against a zone and man-to-man defense.”

Things will look pretty basic for the Spartans offense to start the season. The defense should be a different story, and it’s going to have to be if St. Joseph wants to stay in games. Jones said if there is one strength his team has, it’s speed and it shows up on defense.

The Spartans open the season Friday at home against Highlands in the St. Joseph tournament.

“People are going to say that we’re going to be really bad, and that’s OK,” said Jones. “We probably earned that by not having any experience. I think by the time we hit mid-January and the second time through the section, they won’t want to play us.”

William Whalen is a freelance writer.

Tags: St. Joseph