This winter, the Wakefield women’s varsity basketball team is shaping up to have one of their best years ever. With a new coach, a passion for the sport and an impressive 8-3 record, the team is ready to win big. 

The new head coach of the team, Jason Lee, is prepared for the team to succeed. With experience assistant-coaching men’s basketball under his belt, Lee has a plan to help the team achieve as much as possible throughout the season, starting with the basics. 

“I’m a believer that if you make better people, the winning will come,” Lee said. “Right now, we have to create the individual people before we can build up individual athletes.”

Once the athletes focus on improving their character rather than just their athletic skills, a solid foundation for an encouraging team atmosphere is cultivated. Junior Elle Harris, a small forward and shooting guard on the team, loves the relationship she has with her fellow athletes. 

“I like how we’re all close together,” Harris said. “We started young, and we’ve grown and have a close bond.”

Since the women’s team did not have any seniors last year, the team dynamic is quite different. However, one senior on the team, Brooke Masingale, loves the closeness of the team and the friendships they have all built over the past few years. 

“It’s been really fun, especially with the new coach,” Masingale said. “I feel very close with the team, and I feel like we have overall a great bond.”

With their close bonds and the encouragement from their peers, there is no stopping this team from achieving their goals. While the players are very driven by their personal goals of what they want to accomplish this season, there is one thing holding all of the players together: team spirit. 

“Nobody here is playing for fun, nobody here is playing for individual stats, these are kids that want to win,” Lee said. “They want to prove that Wakefield is worth it, and a lot of the kids here love the school and love the environment, so they want to win for the school.”

With this team spirit in mind, the team’s desires are not far from being achieved. This year, the team’s primary objectives are set in stone, driving the players to succeed for the next few months. Junior shooting guard, Aly Schaffer, believes firmly that with hard work, the team can accomplish anything they set their minds to. 

“[We want] to win the conference tournament, and we want to get further than the third round of the state playoffs because that’s where we made it to last year,” Schaffer said. 

This passionate and close-knit basketball team is ready to be better than ever this year. By motivating each other and embodying the team spirit pivotal to all sports teams’ success, there is no telling what these players will do. As they head into conference play with the state playoffs in sight, Wakefield women’s basketball is more than prepared for the rest of the season. 

“This is probably going to be one of the greatest years Wakefield basketball is going to have as a whole in the past 10 years,” Lee said. “All five teams are really good, so we’re all in a good position to do a lot of winning this year.”