Women’s club basketball prepares itself for a long semester on its road to nationals after having a successful fall season.

Co-president senior Anna Lavella recounted the team’s last tournament before winter break.

“For our last tournament in the fall, we went to Virginia Tech,” Lavella said. “We came in second to them. It was a really good, close game. We were pretty happy coming in second. Virginia Tech is probably our hardest competition this year.”

Lavella also said one of the challenges during the tournament in Virginia was the number of players the team had.

“We also only had seven players that game,” Lavella said. “It was really hard the whole weekend playing seven games in two days and being exhausted and traveling and trying to fight through that.”

With the end of one season, new players come and go as fellow co-president senior Sam Olsen explained how the team will look in the spring. He said while they lost a few players, some new players are being recruited to keep about 20 girls on the team. Lavella added that some members will be returning this season as well, resulting in the club keeping its two-team system.

One large problem the team faced at the beginning of the fall season was lack of stamina. The co-presidents have already made a game plan to avoid the same scenario in the spring.

“We have team runs and team lifts and stuff planned out, so we’ll be in good shape this semester,” Olsen said.

Lavella echoed her co-president’s sentiment and said the team is focusing on getting stronger and faster.

“It might be a little bit easier just because the break is much shorter than summer,” Lavella said. “We’re going to take our conditioning super seriously this semester because we want to be in the best shape we can and be able to play through seven games in a weekend without being tired like we were at Virginia Tech.” 

The co-presidents also want the team to improve in shooting.

“We tend to shoot a lot of shots and if we were to get more of those to go in, we’d definitely be able to win certain games,” Lavella said.

Olsen said the club’s biggest strength is their camaraderie and friendship heading into the spring season.

“We all have the same goal right now and that goal is to win nationals,” Olsen said. “We’re all of the same mindset and we’re all working together towards that one main goal. I think that’s our biggest asset right now.”

The team is already back in the gym practicing for its first tournament, with a home tournament coming up on Feb. 8 and 9, and a game in Chapel Hill on Feb. 22 and 23, according to Olsen. He also said they are looking to go to one more tournament towards the end of March before they go to nationals. Nationals will be held in Wichita, Kansas from April 2 to April 5.