The Lancaster High School girls basketball team continued to grow throughout last season and rookie head coach Jayson Jaskier felt his Legends were playing their best basketball towards the end of last season.
With a strong offseason and a good amount of talent back, Jaskier and the Legends are expecting even more in his second season.
“It’s looking pretty good,” he said before a preseason scrimmage against Maryvale on Monday. “It’s always good to have a year under your belt. Summer league helped out a lot for the girls so right now we’re feeling pretty good about things.”
When Jaskier took over last season, he became the sixth different head coach for the program in the last 10 years. But continuity should not be an issue this season as the Legends expect to benefit, not only from last year’s experience under Jaskier in his first year, but also a strong summer showing.
“We’re going to pick up kind of where we left off last season,” the coach said. “As we went along we just wanted to get better every day and I believe we did that between November and February. And then when we got into summer league we kind of picked up where we left off in February. So we plan on just building on everything.”
Lancaster finished last season at 5-15 last season and hasn’t had a winning record since 2012-13.
Offensively, Lancaster will feature a strong group of forwards including senior Alyssa Kranz, junior Molly Mahony and sophomore Hanna Wozniak.
“They’re very strong offensive players.” Jaskier said. “We’re going to expect a lot from them.”
Senior Kelly Fellner and junior Sara Wagner are expected to contribute at the forward position this season for the Legends.
Seven of the 10 players on the roster are underclassmen but the three seniors – Fellner, Krantz and forward Kaitlyn Armstrong will be a vital part of Lancaster’s success, on and off the court.
“It’s always positive to have senior leadership, especially when we have three of them that were big contributors last year,” Jaskier said.
The Legends will also welcome some big additions from the junior varsity team like sophomore guard Madisyn Pepke, junior guards Paige Genewick and Alexandra Amborski as well as junior forward Hannah Kirisits.
The Legends will be up against a challenge as always being a large school. Powerhouse programs like Williamsville North, Jamestown and others will be a challenge. And while Lancaster expects to keep getting better, the expectation is that the completion will be doing the same.
It’s difficult every night,” Jaskier said. “Just like us, every team is building as the season goes on. But my expectation is just that we get better with every single game and get better every single day. We’re inevitably going to make mistakes but as long as we learn from them it’s not a wasted moment.”
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