Young EdCC women’s team needs to mature

LYNNWOOD

The Edmonds Community College women’s basketball team needs its younger players to shoulder quite a load this season.

Under first-year head coach Syesha Thomas, the Tritons only return three players from last season. So it’s not too much of a surprise that Edmonds has struggled in the preseason. The Tritons have lost its first six preseason games, often by lopsided scores. At the Walla Walla tournament, Edmonds was outscored 105-53 by Lane and 69-36 to Centralia.

The goal going into the tournament was to start to develop a team identity, said sophomore guard Alexa Breidenbach, a Lynnwood graduate.

“We have all new players. We need to gel as a team,” she said. “One of the problems is we hung in there the first half, and the second half we’d get tired and lose our concentration and our focus. That’s when the score would drop and we’d get behind pretty bad. That’s probably one of our biggest issues — becoming a second-half team and fighting and keeping the intensity the whole game.”

Breidenbach, sophomore Amanda Conner (Bothell) and sophomore Kyoko Kirota (Miyako, Japan) are the three returning players.

Edmonds has added some talented players, including Lynnwood graduate Alex Kilmer, who is playing point guard along with Breidenbach, and Maddison Amos (Hayesville, N.C.), who is among the team’s leading scorers. Breidenbach, who is averaging 12 points per game, currently is Edmonds’ top offensive threat.

Aside from 6-foot-3 freshman center Kim Mulka (Skyline), Edmonds doesn’t have a whole lot of height with most of the players 5-8 or smaller.

What the Tritons hope to do is counter with speed and conditioning.

“We’re a quick team,” Breidenbach said. “Coach conditions us a lot. We want to be one of the most conditioned teams in the league. We run a lot to make up for that height. We’ve got the speed to get up and down the court to make up for it.”

Added Thomas, “We’re not very tall, but we’re very versatile.”

Edmonds’ preseason scheduled included some tough teams, such as Big Bend and South Puget Sound, in addition to Lane and Centralia. The losses have served as a wake-up call to Thomas and her players.

“There’s a lot of stuff we need to work on if we’re going to be able to make it to postseason play,” Thomas said. “We’ve got to take care of our responsibilities and take care of things on the court. We competed with all those teams. There were times when we held Lane scoreless and times when we forced 20-plus turnovers.

“We need to start to put it together in a 40-minute ball game. Our girls need to start maturing.”

Most of the teams Edmonds has faced have played 10 or more games, while Edmonds has only had six games so far.

Thomas is looking to Breidenbach, Amos and Conner to set the tone for their teammates. The three are definitely Edmonds’ leaders in terms of effort, energy in practice and in games, Thomas said.

Edmonds has a little more time to get ready for league play, which starts in January. The Tritons are hosting their annual Edmonds Holiday tournament Dec. 27-29.

Thomas hopes to see a little more consistency from her players.

“That comes with maturity,” she said. “Basketball is a game of spurts and it’s a game of momentum. We’ve got to be able to maximize our time when we have the ball … and be able to make the adjustment when the other team has that momentum.”

The players have the desire to succeed.

“I’m excited about our potential,” Thomas said. “I’m definitely very excited for us to get more games under our belt. I’m looking for these girls to now start putting together a complete ball game and start getting some maturity.”