Pingree Girls Varsity Basketball has been having a successful season. The team’s chemistry and renewed coaching role has propelled the team to a successful record of nine wins and seven losses

Senior co-captain Bella Vaz, who is committed to continuing her basketball career at Saint Anselm College, recently reached 1,000 points in the game against Beaver Country Day School. According to junior guard Allie Donovan, Bella is a key player who can create and execute plays effortlessly. The team has a huge rivalry game coming up on February 9th against Governor’s Academy. Pingree hopes to come out with the win and continue their successful season. 

After interviewing many potential candidates for the girl’s varsity basketball coaching job, Pingree viewed Branden Barboza as a perfect fit. Branden is a coach who constantly encourages his players and builds their confidence. 

Junior guard Allie Donovan values the time Barboza puts into making the team stronger. After every game, they have mandatory film sessions to view what went well and what could be improved from the previous game. He focuses on individual strengths and weaknesses throughout the game as well as the team as a whole. Also, Branden sends quotes and gives positive feedback to encourage and motivate his players. 

Senior captain Bella Vaz says, “I love Branden. His coaching style is very productive. He is always trying to be positive, and I think there is a good balance between coaching and fun. He is doing a good job adjusting and building up the team again”. 

Despite the majority of the team being underclassmen, height doesn’t matter. The team values tough and scrappy play on the defensive end making it difficult for the opposing team to maintain possession. A strength of the team is their defense and forcing players to create turnovers. Their defensive skills help limit teams from scoring and taking advantage of their size. 

“A strength of our team is we are very hardworking and willing to learn from our mistakes,” says sophomore Sidney Reno. “We come to practice ready to improve and reflect on our weaknesses for our next game”. 

On the offensive side, the team is filled with great shooters who can shoot from all over the court. Having a wide range of shooters allows them to try different things and make their offense harder to defend. 

This year, the team is filled with a bunch of new players. The team is very young having five freshmen. Since little chemistry carried over from last season, the team captains, Shea Nelson, and Bella Vaz, have been trying to revive it with team bonding outside of practices and games. Recently, the team traveled to the TD Garden to watch other prep teams play in the Andrew James Lawson Foundation. Junior guard Allie Donovan felt like this trip gave her new opportunities to talk to new teammates and learn more about them. She enjoyed this experience and thought it was very cool to watch other teams play at The Garden. 

After the past few games and film sessions, Donovan reflected that although the team is filled with strong shooters and is skilled defensively, they can still work on rebounding. Since the team is filled with young players, they aren’t given the height advantage but still fight for every loose ball. By strengthening their rebounding and fighting for the ball in the air, the team will be much stronger and harder to compete against.  

Something that makes Donovan play better is when the bench has high energy. Hearing her teammates cheer for her encourages her to go for every ball. She also appreciates when her coach compliments her for making a good play. He is very good at giving each player his attention and feedback to help them improve.