Sports
Season Recap: Medford Girls Surprise in 2011
The Medford High girls basketball team went 8-0 in the GBL this season and finished 14-6 overall.
It wasn’t the ending that head coach Leo Burke wanted for his Medford girls basketball team, but with a crop of returning players ready to keep rolling in 2011-12 season, the Mustangs could just be getting started.
Medford took a lopsided loss to Lincoln-Sudbury in the first round of the Div. 1 North tournament to end the season for the Mustangs. Burke’s team went cold after they scored the first bucket of the game, but saw their opponent score the next 15 points and pull away completely with a 74-44 victory.
“They are a very good team,” Burke said of Lincoln-Sudbury. “We were just nervous. Once we settled in we played with them, but it was kind of a big deficit to come back from.
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“I knew it was going to be a tough game.”
The Mustangs will return several key pieces from a team that went 8-0 in the Greater Boston League and finished with a 14-6 record in the regular season.
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“This year was a surprising year for me,” said Burke. “I thought we would be pretty good. I thought we would make the tournament, but to go 14-6 exceeded my expectations. As the season went along they jelled. Things happened and we started to play well.”
Burke will be losing his top leader, Kasey Moran, but Tania Holmes will be back for her senior season. Holmes is the reigning two-time Greater Boston League MVP, and Burke is looking for her to take an even bigger leap as a leader.
“On the court and off the court,” Burke said when asked where he wants Holmes to improve for next year. “She is going to be a senior next year and we will be as good as she wants to be.”
Moran was more of a vocal leader for Burke, and Holmes kind of plodded away and did her talking on the court, according to the coach. Sarah Donnelly will enter her sophomore season and will be expected to fill big minutes as a starter.
“She really matured as the season went along, so I’m expecting big things from her,” Burke said of Donnelly.
Medford won’t be able to sneak up on anyone next season after beating Cambridge twice and Somerville twice, so the younger players will have to learn how to play with the collective bulls-eye on their back.
The Mustangs have all summer to figure out how to do that.
