City of Basketball Love

Ryan Coyle (@ryancoyle35)
—

(Ed. Note: This story is part of CoBL’s “Prepping for Preps” series, which will take a look at many of the top high school programs in the region as part of our 2022-23 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed thus far can be found here.)

~~~

Twenty-four wins and four losses. Wins in 20 of their last 21 games. A Friends Schools League Championship and the first PAISAA State Championship in program history.

Not a bad season for head coach Fran Burbidge’s program in his third year at the helm right?

Well, that is all in the past now and this year’s Westtown girls basketball squad has its mind on new goals, with defending last year's championship victories not on their agenda.

“I have always preached that we aren't defending anything,” Burbidge said. “In my opinion, when you are defending something, when you lose then you have to give it back. That’s not the case with what we won last year. We did that, we won and that’s history.”

“This is a new group, with new goals, who are trying to write their own history. So I don’t really buy into that defending the championship saying. We are like every other team fighting for this year's championship.”

Burbidge is right. This year’s team will look a whole lot different from the one that went 24-4, winning the FSL and PAISSA championships along the way. Seven members of last year's team won’t be back with the Moose this upcoming season, with three key pieces off playing Division I basketball. 

Due to graduation, Westtown lost the Pennsylvania Gatorade State Player of the Year Kaylene Smikle who is now at Rutgers. Three-year starting point guard Meliah Van-Otoo, who was viewed as the main leader on the team, is now at Loyola (Md.) Also gone is Helena Lasic, the team's main inside presence who is continuing her playing career at Penn. 

Josie Boyer, Olivia Wiggins and Mara Donnelly graduated as well. Rising junior Keana Foz suffered a knee injury during the summer playing AAU and will be out for the season.

Despite missing 60 percent of their starting five from last year's historic season, there is still plenty of optimism for continued success between both the coaching staff and the players.

“We are going to be young, but we want to be able to use our talent and our athletes to get up and down the floor against our opponents,” Burbidge said. 

Burbidge, who is entering his fourth year as the head coach at Westtown, also has over 25 years of coaching experience in girls basketball between high school and AAU and is assisted by associate head coach Doug West, who starred at Villanova and played in the NBA. 

The two are going to rely heavily on senior guard and Delaware commit Grace Sundback and junior Zahra King, who holds multiple high-level Division I offers from Auburn, Clemson, and Harvard amongst others, to steer the ship and lead the team in the early goings as captains.

Good thing for Sundback, the leadership role is something that comes naturally to her.

“I think I have a leadership quality where I lead by example and people see my work in the gym, that it translates into results, and my teammates want to follow in my footsteps and I think that is what you want out of a leader on a team,” Sundback said. 

“When I am in the gym, the girls are in there working with me now because they want to be as good as they can and when I am pushing my teammates it is only going to benefit us in the long-run.”

Sundback and King return as the two key cogs on this year's team as FSL all-league first team selections this past season. The rest of the rotation? That’s where the questions lie. 

While some staffs might try to find ways to replace the missing production from three departures of the starting lineup who are set to play Division I basketball, including the state POY, that isn’t what is on Burbidge’s mind as he aims to figure out what lineups will lead to the most success.

“If we tried to fill in all their production with the players on our team this year it would lead to some sleepless nights,” Burbidge said. “We are just going to continue our approach of, this is a new team, a team with a lot of talent, and it is our job as a staff to figure out how to fit the pieces to the puzzle.”

Senior Joniah Bland-Fitzpatrick, a Seton Hall commit, is another key piece returning for this year’s Westtown team who should be one of their main scoring options and bring a lot of valuable experience to the table. 

Other players who will fight for roles and minutes in the rotation include juniors Savannah Curry and Michelle Olak, who both hold Division I offers. Sophomores Vianna Kanyamiheto-Watson and Aidan Langley (a transfer from Coatesville) will be in the mix to play minutes for the Moose as well this season. 

There are also several young players in the mix for playing time, including freshman Atlee Vanesko, eighth grader Jessie Moses and 6-1 eighth grader Jordyn Palmer who Burbidge is bullish on and believes ‘have a chance to be very, very good at this game’.

While a lot of experience and production went out the door, Sundback is confident she will be able to keep her teammates' mindset on continued success and keeping the trajectory of the program going upwards. 

“I want to keep the same intensity and focus that we had last year going into this year,” Sundback said. “My main focus has been trying to lead and teach the underclassmen on the team of how we do stuff here and how we are expected to perform at a high-level.”

“I want them to have the mindset that we have the talent to be state champions again. Even though we lost a lot to graduation, we still have enough talent to go win it again and they have to have that mindset.”

With a team that is loaded with Division I talent, it is hard to nitpick at things that they might struggle with, but Burbidge noted that this team might not have the same size as in seasons past and with Lasic now at Penn, it is going to be a group effort on the glass. 

“That is on us as a staff to make sure we have these girls in the right spots and are going to be tough enough to withstand those battles,” Burbidge said. “It is going to be a team effort on the glass every night.”

What it might lack in size, Westtown hopes to make up for it with athleticism and skill. Burbidge expects his team to run the floor and get up and down a lot this year, trying to convert defense into easy offense.

With so much production and experience lost, everything remains a speculation until his team gets back on the floor playing in competitive action again.

But once his team is back out there, they won’t be defending their championships from the past season, instead just going for the next batch.