With the girls’ basketball season looming ahead, the Holyoke High girls’ basketball team and their coach, Tom Brassil, are feeling the pressure to perform as well as, if not better than, last season.

After last year, they have some decent sized shoes to fill.  Last year’s team made it to the first round of playoffs, but unfortunately lost to West Springfield, but walked away from the season feeling satisfied and even gaining the 5th spot on MassLive’s preseason ranking this year.

Something all the team members are also proud of is their victory over the seemingly unbeatable Springfield Central High School last year, marking Central’s first loss in over two years!

When asked about the new season, Coach Brassil admits that he does have his fair share of worries. The starting line up, the overall ball handling skills, and the post positions all have him somewhat nervous, but he feels that with practice and determination the girls will fix these small issues and will be ready for the long season. He says that his ultimate goal for this season and for any season is to make it to the Western Mass playoffs and even win it all, like the girls team did only a few years ago in 2012– he knows that voicing this goal will help the girls stay motivated.

A few of the team members, captains Mackenzie Pratt ’16 and Callie Cavanaugh ’17, share similar opinions. Pratt explains that what they all need the most this season is “to work better as a team.” Cavanaugh echoes those thoughts and thinks “[they] also need to work on our communication during games.” It’s easy to say that the whole team has the ultimate goal of developing their ability to work together and to improve their overall performance on the court.

Another important part of this season has to do with one of the team’s own players soon to be joining Holyoke High’s 1,000 point club. At the end of last season, Cavanaugh had scored a total of 737 points throughout her first two years of her high school career, averaging 20 points a game. Now, with the new season here, she has high hopes for finally reaching that 1,000 milestone. Her prediction is that she will make it to the mark at around the 12th game of the season, but no matter when it does happen, it will certainly be something that she along with the whole team will be extremely proud of.

For anyone who would like to check them out, their schedule can be found on the Holyoke High athletics website.  They even started off the season with their first win in the season on opening night, December 14, with a 55-35 win over Westfield. It’s definitely a team to keep an eye on throughout the season as Cavanaugh reaches her 1,000 points and as the team hopefully performs like it did back in 2012, winning the championship.