Northeast High girls basketball looks to the future

Patti Delfs, the first-year head coach for the girls basketball team at Northeast High, figured this would be a challenging season. The team lost three senior starters from last year's team that was 14-9 overall.

This year's team was 3-16 overall going into Friday's county game at Meade, the first of three games to end regular-season play. One bright spot has been junior Latifah Butler, who leads the team in scoring at around 14 points per contest. Delfs, an assistant coach last season, hopes to improve next season.

"I am hoping so. We have a couple of freshmen who will hopefully work hard in the off-season and contribute," Delfs told Pasadena Patch on Wednesday. Tawni Prestridge, a senior point guard this season, may try to play as a freshman at York (Pa.) College.

Delfs took over for former head coach Kristi Ellenberger, who took the head job at Division III College of Notre Dame in Baltimore. She was the Northeast coach since the beginning of the 2007-08 season. The program was 0-36 in the two years before Ellenberger took over at Northeast. Her father, Don, was the softball coach at Chesapeake High.

"She took over a program at Northeast High School that was facing a lot of adversity, and completely turned it around in a very short period of time, and I think her experience of rebuilding the Northeast program will pay tremendous dividends rebuilding our program at College of Notre Dame," said College of Notre Dame Athletic Director Michael Spinner in a statement when she was hired. College of Notre Dame won three of its first 21 games this season.

Petrisko focuses on hoops in college

Taylor Petrisko of Pasadena played three sports, basketball, field hockey and lacrosse, at Chesapeake High. So how did she decide what sport to play in college?

"It was not a hard decision. I only picked up field hockey in seventh grade and lacrosse in high school and I did not play lacrosse as a junior," said Petrisko, who is now a sophomore on the women's basketball team at Division III St. Mary's College of southern Maryland.

Finding a school was also not that difficult. While she looked into York, Salisbury and Frostburg State, Petrisko already had some family ties to St. Mary's. Her stepbrother, Michael, played lacrosse for three years at the school and graduated from St. Mary's. Her sister-in-law, Courtney Wentzel, also graduated from the school.

Petrisko is studying to be an elementary school teacher and said she has been able to balance academics and athletics. "It gets tough sometimes. It is not too bad during basketball season since you have a set schedule," she said.

Last year as a freshman the 5-foot-11 post player played in 25 games, with three starts, and averaged 4.9 points and 4.2 rebounds per game. She averaged 15 points and 6.3 rebounds per game as a high school senior to gain all-Anne Arundel County honors.

This season, in the first 21 gaames, she made five starts and averaged 15 minutes, 6.3 points and 3.2 rebounds per contest for a team that was 10-11 in games through Tuesday.

The team lost two senior starters from last year's team and another starter that decided to stay at the school but does not play on the team. "We have a lot of new, first-year players," Petrisko said. "It has been a learning curve." St. Mary's is about 90 minutes from her home in Pasadena and she has family in the stands at nearly every home game.

Some of her former high school teammates who are also playing college sports include Courtney Lupinek, a sophomore on the women's soccer team at Towson last fall; Erika Stasch, who will be a junior outfielder this spring for the softball team at Towson; Kelly Hickman, a sophomore second baseman in softball at Mount St. Mary's; and Katie Mansell, who will be a senior on the lacrosse team this spring at York (Pa.) Collegege.

Chesapeake High led by Russell, Terry

Joe Russell of Chesapeake had 18 points, eight rebounds and three assists in a 72-64 loss to North County. Teammate Aaron Terry added 16 points and five rebounds, according to head coach Raymond Pack.

At least two members of the girls basketball team at Chesapeake High plan to play lacrosse in college. Erin Tenneson plans to play at Duke and Valerie Everett is headed to Connecticut after she signed with the school in December, according to head basketball coach Meghan Klug.