Saint E's Varsity Girls Basketball to Reload for Next Season

As the old saying goes, there's always next year. And that's exactly what the members of the varsity girls basketball team from will be telling themselves this offseason.

Saint Elizabeth's Lancers played to a 12-13 overall record during the 2010-11 season, including a 2-10 record in the Diocese of Pittsburgh's South 1A Section, which was not good enough for a spot in this year's playoffs.

The South 1A Section sent its top three teams to the diocese's championships tournament, but Saint E's tied for sixth place in South 1A.

Lancers Head Coach Michelle Voelker offered a few reasons why the team struggled through parts of the season.

"We started the year off in promising fashion," Voelker said, "(despite) only having nine girls on our varsity team. We played well in an early-season tournament. We beat some good teams in scrimmages.

"But shortly after the Christmas break, we were plagued with injuries and illnesses. We had a starter out for eight weeks with a broken foot. One girl broke her wrist. Another got pneumonia, and (we had) a couple of ankle sprains.

"Needless to say, we didn't have our 'starting lineup' for the majority of the season, and with only nine girls to start with, it was a difficult season."

Certainly, playing in the tough South 1A Section didn't make things easier either.

"We were in a very tough section," Voelker said, "which includes last year's diocesan champions, so to not have a fully healthy team for most of the season was a hard feat to overcome."

Voelker was referring to , which won a state basketball title in 2010 as well. The other teams in South 1A include Saint Thomas More School, Our Lady of Grace School, St. Bernard School, St. Philip School and St. Louise de Marillac School.

While the Lancers certainly would have been better off without injuries to many of their starting players during the 2010-11 season, Voelker said that the team's younger players benefited from gaining experience in those injured players' stead.

"Looking forward to next year," Voelker said, "we have several seventh-graders that now have a lot of varsity experience since they were starters for most of the season.

"We will add to them a feisty group of sixth-graders that made it through the first round of junior-varsity playoffs this season."

Indeed, Saint E's jayvee girls team, which finished third in the South 1A Section's jayvee standings with an 8-4 section record, upset John F. Kennedy Catholic School, 20-19, in the first round of the diocese's 2011 jayvee playoffs before falling to St. Alphonsus School, 36-20, in the quarterfinals. John F. Kennedy's jayvee girls finished second in the South 2A Section this year with an 8-2 section record, while St. Alphonsus' jayvee team went 10-0 in section play to finish first in the North 1A Section.