Girls Hoops Squad Looks to Build on Last Year's Strong Finish

The Fair Lawn Girls Basketball team was a disappointing 3-12 last year before , where they and .

doesn’t think it’ll take quite as long this season before the team hits its stride.

“This year,” Lovermi said Tuesday after the team’s scrimmage with Mahwah, “the girls understand what my expectations are, they understand a little bit more about the offenses and defenses, and they understand about coming to work everyday and preparing ourselves for the season ahead.”

He attributes a lot of that preparedness to time the team spent playing together this summer in a local league and two team camps at Boston College and Siena College.

“All of that really helps us in terms of team continuity, bonding, getting to know each other,” he said.

Senior center Meagan Tuchler said she sees growth in the team’s camaraderie this year, especially among its seniors who’ve been playing basketball together for the past seven years.

“This year, so far, we’ve been working really hard,” Tuchler said. “Compared to this time last year, we’re definitely ahead of where we were.”

The 5-foot-10-inch Tuchler, who was primarily a force on the glass last year, said she’d like to add more of an offensive element to her game in her senior season.

She’ll share the interior with Alex Kerr, a freshman who Lovermi expects will provide the team with a spark in the low post and on the offensive boards.

The Lady Cutters’ backcourt will be led by senior point guard Regina Tillar, and three-point threats Jen Calabrese and Sam Lebowitz. Senior guard Ariel Mann-Harper will come off the bench.

Tuchler said the team’s defense should be its strength.

“We might not always run everything correctly on the offensive side,” said Tuchler, who expects to attend the University of Alabama next year and study pharmacy.” But defense is where we’re really intense. And though we don’t have girls that are like 6-feet tall, we outrebound our opponents.”

Defense and rebounding, Lovermi agreed, will be the team’s keys to victory.

“We have got to play great defense.  That’s what did it for us last year,” he said. “I think we’ve improved offensively, but it’ll be difficult for us to win games that go into the high scores.”

Lovermi said so far the team’s defense has looked good, but that it's got to get better. He’s said he's optimistic for the season ahead.

“I think we have a lot of games that we’re going to win,” said Lovermi, who acknowledged he'd be disappointed with anything less than a winning season and county and state tournament berths. “We’d like to build on how we ended last year. I’m encouraged, I think we have a lot of pieces to the puzzle. It’s just that puzzle fitting together.”

Lovermi said he thinks this team, despite losing star center Kristina Nieves to graduation, has as much talent as last year’s squad.

“It’s just a matter of the girls being confident, it’s a matter of the girls coming together as a group,” he said. “You need confidence. That I think, is a big part of this game. Getting a little bit of success that breeds confidence and then you take off from there.”

A win against perennial county power Ramapo Friday night in the team’s opener would go a long way toward building that confidence, Lovermi said. Ramapo embarrassed the Lady Cutters in their first game last year.

Opening night Friday will be dedicated to freshman Keyla Martinez, a talented guard who played with the team this summer and was expected to get quality varsity minutes this year.

Martinez fell seriously ill during a team workout just before Thanksgiving and had to be rushed to the hospital where doctors found swelling of her brain and placed her in a medically-induced coma. She’s out of the coma now, but remains in recovery at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Lovermi said the sale of t-shirts, concessions and proceeds from a raffle during the game will be donated to the Martinez family. Students won’t be charged admission to attend the game, but donations will be accepted.

“The team has been resilient, they’ve gone about their business, they probably have reacted better than I have, honestly,” Lovermi said. “They’re the ones that decided that they wanted to do something special for Keyla on opening night, so I give all the credit to them for putting this together.”

Tip-off is at 7 p.m.