Girls’ High School Basketball Previews

With eight players back, Pilgrim finally ready to contend

Kevin Pomeroy, Sports Editor
Posted 12/11/14

Beginning with a winless season in 2010-11, the Pilgrim girls’ basketball team has grown incrementally each of the past three years.

The Pats have taken baby steps – one win in 2011-12, two …

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Girls’ High School Basketball Previews

With eight players back, Pilgrim finally ready to contend

Posted

Beginning with a winless season in 2010-11, the Pilgrim girls’ basketball team has grown incrementally each of the past three years.

The Pats have taken baby steps – one win in 2011-12, two in 2012-13 and three in 2013-14.

Pilgrim is expecting more growth this season, but not of the same variety. The Pats are in search of a leap, one that thrusts them into the playoff picture for the first time in a long time.

Eight players with significant varsity experience are back to light the path, and a move down to Division III should give Pilgrim a chance to be competitive night-in and night-out.

It’s the most optimistic the Pats have been in half a decade, and it’s completely understandable.

“I’m very happy with their focus, their attention, their interest in being competitive this year,” said head coach Ian Smith. “They all worked hard over the summer. Several of them are noticeably better than when last season ended.”

The Pats are certainly missing some key contributors off of last year’s team, with Maddy Craik, Haley Donahay and Clare Birney all graduating. But the Pats have others ready to step in and the fill the void, and they’re not just stopgaps. They’re athletes.

Just about every player on the Pilgrim roster plays another sport, and the school itself is in the midst of an incredibly successful stretch. The girls’ volleyball team reached the Division II finals this past fall, while the girls’ soccer team won the Division II championship.

Many players from those teams – plus a field hockey team that made the playoffs, a successful outdoor track team in the spring, a perennially contending softball team and D-III runner-up lacrosse team – are on the roster, making the Pats athletic and battle-tested.

“They’re coming off successful winning seasons, and they have plans of continuing that,” Smith said. “It’s a good time to be a female athlete at Pilgrim.”

The Pats’ lone senior on the roster is Alexa Annotti, who fits the athletic mold. She was one of Pilgrim’s better players a year ago, and she was one of the top players on the volleyball team as well.

“She can play any position,” Smith said. “With her length, she can play big, and with her ability as a guard she can help out bringing the ball up.”

The junior class is deeper, and four players in particular have shown improvement throughout the summer and are poised for breakout seasons. They are Kendra Tantimonico, Hannah Page, Alexia Martins and Erin Plowman, all of who were members of the championship-winning soccer team.

Page and Martins will play guard, with Tantimonico playing a combination of forward and guard and Plowman settling in at forward.

“Last year the girls really prepared for every game and stayed focused from start to finish, and I would say that carried through the summer,” Smith said. “Some of them have noticeably improved.”

Sophomore Jeriann Evans was also on the soccer team and will be in the mix at guard, and her freshman sister Karly Evans will see some varsity time as a guard, too.

“I feel like I have four capable point guards,” Smith said.

Junior Hannah Ambrosia will slot in as a shooting guard, while sophomore Mary Mullane is playing the same position and sophomore Crystal Armstrong will provide some depth on the inside.

Pilgrim will play this season in D-III-South one of the two new subdivisions in a new-look, 20-team D-III. The Pats will share the division with Block Island, Central, Hope, Middletown, Narragansett, Toll Gate, Rocky Hill, Mt. Pleasant and Warwick Vets.

It should be a competitive division – as it features many teams from the old D-II – yet it should also be a place where Pilgrim can really contend.

“I think it’s set up correctly right now for the next couple of years,” Smith said. “It’ll be a nice change to look at the schedule and see opportunity.”

The Pats’ first opportunity comes today in an Injury Fund game against Tolman at home at 6 p.m. Their first league game is at home against Mt. Pleasant on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Pilgrim hopes it’s the start of something special.

“We haven’t been in the playoffs since 2010, so our goal is to go to the playoffs,” Smith said. “That’s step one. Step two is go as far as possible once we get there.”

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