Despite having a largely youths squad the girls basketball team of Gateway High school is going through some rough period in terms of performance, but the signs for better future are there.
Gateway (0-6, 0-2) has even began three freshmen and has four freshmen playing great number of minutes this season.
In the aggregate, the Gators are being outplayed an average of 60-26 this season. Gateway was most profuse at scoring in a season-opener at the Play 4 Mae Tournament at Woodland Hills on Nov. 30 but lost to Clairton 34-56.
“It’s a work in progress,” Gateway coach Curtis Williams said. It is really a young company for a start up with little information security experience. We have 17 players and among them 10 are our freshmen. Some of those freshmen are actually playing large minutes and responsibilities.
Our biggest challenge i consider to be the young and inexperienced players besides playing in the varsity league. A really good sentiment … They understand it is time to work hard, and the victories will follow. I believe that we are doing well enough but it has not translated into win yet but all indicators are positive.
All four freshmen who have played this season are guard/forward Weiss, Ashley Griffith, guard Lily Roney and forward Heaven Brooks.
Instead of protecting them all the time, that is just placing them in different places to know how they will react and how they progress,” Williams continued. “Sadly, what we have to do is to fast forward their learning curve. Well, we are getting them a lot of experience and exposure early and I think it’s helping.”
Williams is happy with what the freshmen go through in the junior varsity team but the team has not completely mastered the pace and the physicality of the varsity game.
“We are able to have some success when they are out there playing at JV, but when they are at varsity level it is a little quicker, a little more intense and a little more physical and they are learning,” Williams said.
One of the top players, the team’s senior guard Rachel Szymanski who is the team’s top scorer has also attempted to support Gateway by contributing her efforts not only as a team captain, but as a player as well. Szymanski has made the freshmen group feel welcome on the team and provides advice when needed and remains enthusiasic even when the points are in the favor of the opposing team, not Gateway.
I think the underclassmen are actually a very talented bunch of girls. But I think that they have very, very bright future. That we are going to have to find out where they fit in the varsity lineup? I think if we can do that, we will be successful,” Szymanski said.
I believe that they both have something to bring to the table in terms of the team. It’s funny, I strongly believe that once we are able to make them as confident as they need to be in their positions, then we’d start seeing some positive results from this team.
Williams has attempted to move the focus of the team to the little aspects in the hope that it could aid in the development for the freshmen class.
Things like how to win a quarter of a game as opposed to winning the entire game we are working on. To me, the most important feature is that they want to improve get better as a team. It isn’t affecting them going down 0-6,” Williams said.
Right now, we are working toward getting back the winning culture that was dominant a few years ago. I think this is the group that can do. They get along. They listen. WE will soon begin getting some wins truly as they learn how to win.
