The Warwick girls hockey co-op is grinding through a rebuilding season and is looking to find an identity as it enters the meat of its regular season schedule.

The Lady Titans entered the week at 0-5 but have been settling in on their lineup while seeing small improvements along the way. Warwick lost senior captain and goalie Mary Centracchio to graduation and also disbanded its co-op with Chariho, which took a few players off the shelf heading into this year.

Returning are key players such as Ayla Paley and Georgia Feld, along with Flora Meunier who has been the team’s primary goalie while Emily Tullie has also chipped in as well.

“We are definitely playing well above expectations right now. We lost our co-op with Chariho and those girls were key starters in our lineup, so we have some girls playing in roles that they’ve never been in. We’re hanging in games the best we can and keeping up our spirits,” said first year head coach Madison Balutowski.

Centracchio was a four-year starter in net, so Meunier and Tullie have had big shoes to fill in the early going.

 “We go in every game [saying], ‘you’re going to see a lot of shots so just give your best effort.’ I can’t ask more of those two, especially being juniors and not seeing a lot of net time behind Mary. We are very fortunate to have two really good goalies,” said Balutowski.

Leading the way on offense will once again be Paley, who leads the team with two goals so far.

“Ayla has grown as a player. She’s our primary goal scorer and it’s tough because teams know that and are all over her. We are trying to add to her tool box and teach her different routes to the net, trying to see the play before it develops so she can get more goals,” said Balutowski, who is also hoping that the team’s overall goal output improves in the next few games. “Right now, the bar is set at scoring more goals. We don’t have many goals this year, but our first line is starting to really work well together so now it’s about finding more opportunities.”

Balutowski is a familiar face to the program as she takes over this winter, as she was an assistant for the past few seasons and was also a player during her high school days at Pilgrim.

“I’m ecstatic to be taking over the team. To come back and give back to the program that was a big part of my career is huge,” Balutowski said. “You can feel a different energy on the bench, the girls like having a female coach on the bench. It helps having my take on it as someone that was in their position and played at their level.”