Tamaqua girls aim to build on last year’s success

When the 2016-17 season rolled around, the Tamaqua girls basketball program had six incoming freshmen.

But it wasn’t your typical freshman class.

The combination of a super talented frosh class, and a handful of upperclassmen, helped turn heads around District 11 as the youthful Raiders (11-12) earned a district playoff berth.

With a wealth of experience under their belt, the 2017 Raiders will look to take another step forward under third-year head coach Erika Davis.

“There’s no more excuse about how young we are—even though we are,” Davis said. They certainly have the experience and they know the tempo of the game and how physical our league is … It’s just coming down to taking care of the basketball, finishing around the basket, and playing solid defense. We’ll limit the turnovers and play together as a team, and hopefully make a little bit of noise.”

That former frosh class includes leading scorer Emma Kucyznski and point guard Jamie Zuber, who compliment each other’s game nicely. Kuczynski ranked third in the TN area in scoring with 18.17 points per game. They’ll be joined in the starting lineup by another sophomore, Emily Titus, while Jen Frederickson (F/So.) and Rebekah Hromyak (G/So.) will likely share starting duties.

“It depends who we play, one is a guard and one is a forward,” Davis said of Frederickson and Hromyak. “That could change every game, depending on how we match up with our opponent will determine who starts that game.”

The lone senior and final starter on the team is 5-11 center Kirstin Jones.

“She’s a beast on the boards,” Davis said. “When she’s out of the game, there’s a big deficit for us. We need to make sure that we keep her healthy and out of foul trouble. She doesn’t realize the little things that she does for us, that may go unnoticed sometimes, that we need as a team.”

But it doesn’t bother Jones that she’s the only upperclassmen.

“I’m the only senior, but it’s OK, because we have talented underclassmen to fill the spots,” Jones said. “In the offseason, we played a lot together. We scrimmaged other teams and that helped us a lot, and we worked on fundamentals all summer.”

The Raiders are not your ordinary young group, and have a shot to gel together quickly after last year’s experience. But there’s one facet of the game Davis needs to see improvement on.

Communication.

“We’re a very quiet team, but they’re very focused and coach-able,” Davis said. “I’m always asking the girls to talk. Last year, it definitely affected us. We were harping on them that they need to talk … they’re getting better at it, but at the same time, it just needs to click.

“We have a lot of weapons, and they feed off of each other so well. These girls have been playing together for awhile, and they read each other well. We know that Emma is going to get junk-defensed. We told the girls that and we’re going to look for girls to step up a bit more than they did last year. We’re asking each player to step up and accept their role. If everyone plays within their role, I think we’ll be alright.”