Triton Hopes To Build On Experience Of Last Season
November 4, 2016 at 5:06 p.m.
Triton Hopes To Build On Experience Of Last Season
By Mark [email protected]
The Lady Trojans were excessively young and got off to an unusually slow start, losing their first six games and seven of eight on their way to a 10-13 season.
The season snapped a string of five straight years with at least 13 wins for head coach Adam Heckaman’s program. It was only the third losing season in the eight years Heckaman has been the coach; the others were his first two seasons at the helm.
Heckaman said he plans to use last season as a growing period for this year’s team.
Key returners include senior Quinn Downing and juniors Hannah Wanemacher, Nicole Sechrist, and Charlotte Morris. Heckman will be looking to get a lot of minutes from Courtney Jennings, Sara Stevens, Megan McFarland, and Kaitlin Bailey.
“I think last year we learned that we have to trust the process,” Heckman said. “Our goal is to make sure we are improving each and every day so we can be at our most competitive for the conference season and for the sectional at the end of the year.
“We went through some bumps at the beginning of our season last year, but learned, and were definitely playing our best by the end of the year. We will be looking for the same thing this season.”
Indeed, Triton did finish strong. The Lady Trojans won five of their last six games before falling 31-29 to North Miami in the first round of sectional play.
The sudden end to the best part of the season left Triton with a sense of unfinished business heading into the offseason.
“The girls were upset with the way the season ended last year and that added extra motivation for the summer,” Heckaman said. “Everyone worked very hard this summer and we saw a lot of improvement out of everybody. We will be looking to build on that this season and should see a lot more even contributions on both ends of the floor.”
The key to getting the program back to where Trojan Nation believes it should be lies in the day-to-day effort of the players, according to the coach. Like most teams, seasons are remembered more for a win streak in the postseason than anything that happens record-wise before Christmas.
“I think success for this season will be looked at like I mentioned before, are we learning and getting better daily?” Heckaman said. “If the girls are competing daily in practice and getting better and we are playing our best ball at the end of the season, then I think we will be able to look back on the season and be happy with the results that we will see.”
Triton opens the 2016-17 season with five games in 13 days, starting at 7:30 p.m. tonight when it hosts John Glenn in a non-conference game in the Trojan Trench.
The Lady Trojans were excessively young and got off to an unusually slow start, losing their first six games and seven of eight on their way to a 10-13 season.
The season snapped a string of five straight years with at least 13 wins for head coach Adam Heckaman’s program. It was only the third losing season in the eight years Heckaman has been the coach; the others were his first two seasons at the helm.
Heckaman said he plans to use last season as a growing period for this year’s team.
Key returners include senior Quinn Downing and juniors Hannah Wanemacher, Nicole Sechrist, and Charlotte Morris. Heckman will be looking to get a lot of minutes from Courtney Jennings, Sara Stevens, Megan McFarland, and Kaitlin Bailey.
“I think last year we learned that we have to trust the process,” Heckman said. “Our goal is to make sure we are improving each and every day so we can be at our most competitive for the conference season and for the sectional at the end of the year.
“We went through some bumps at the beginning of our season last year, but learned, and were definitely playing our best by the end of the year. We will be looking for the same thing this season.”
Indeed, Triton did finish strong. The Lady Trojans won five of their last six games before falling 31-29 to North Miami in the first round of sectional play.
The sudden end to the best part of the season left Triton with a sense of unfinished business heading into the offseason.
“The girls were upset with the way the season ended last year and that added extra motivation for the summer,” Heckaman said. “Everyone worked very hard this summer and we saw a lot of improvement out of everybody. We will be looking to build on that this season and should see a lot more even contributions on both ends of the floor.”
The key to getting the program back to where Trojan Nation believes it should be lies in the day-to-day effort of the players, according to the coach. Like most teams, seasons are remembered more for a win streak in the postseason than anything that happens record-wise before Christmas.
“I think success for this season will be looked at like I mentioned before, are we learning and getting better daily?” Heckaman said. “If the girls are competing daily in practice and getting better and we are playing our best ball at the end of the season, then I think we will be able to look back on the season and be happy with the results that we will see.”
Triton opens the 2016-17 season with five games in 13 days, starting at 7:30 p.m. tonight when it hosts John Glenn in a non-conference game in the Trojan Trench.
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