Women's Basketball

Led by returning captains Danielle Lafont, Stephanie Barclay, and Naomi White, the women's basketball team is looking to bounce back from a disheartening end to last season.

Coach Vinnie Maloney is now in his fifth year as the head coach of the women's basketball team, and has ambitious aspirations for his squad.  He is raising the bar high despite the fact that the lady Hornets did not make the North Atlantic Conference postseason last year after going 2-12 in conference matchups. The Lyndon State College women ended the season with 10 straight NAC losses.

As with all teams at this point, there are certain aspects of game play that need the greatest improvement.  Coach Maloney hopes his team can make strides in one particular area during its non-conference games in December.

"Obviously you're always looking to win, but of course the big thing is to get to the point we need to be defensively," said Maloney. "Right now we're horrible, for lack of a better term, but that's something we have to work on and change as a team.  Individually we do okay, but as a team we need work.  Everyone's focused on their individual assignment rather than what we need to do as a team."

"Our goal is the same as it always is, to win the NAC," said Maloney. "But right now our stepping stone is to get through the first semester as best we can and get focused for the conference."

The Hornets began their journey toward that goal at the Endicott College Gulls tournament on Nov. 19.  They started this season where they left off last year and lost in the first game vs. Endicott by a dismal score of 84-20. 

"The first one definitely didn't go as I expected, we played horribly, of course," said Maloney of his team's poor performance against Endicott. "It was our first game playing all semester…so it was a little rough. We played a little shaky, a little nervous."

However, junior guard Danielle Lafont expected the game would not be a pretty one.  "It was our first game of the season, so you're going to have a lot of bad plays and throw passes away," she said.

In the consolation game vs. Newbury College on Saturday, Nov. 20, LSC seemed to be in control throughout the entire game and pulled out their first victory of the season 66-52.  Sophomore forward Donna Lawson and junior guard Naomi White each scored 21 points to boost the Hornets to the win.

"We calmed down to the point where we could play well in the second game," said Lafont.

After a brief break during the thanksgiving holiday, the team returned to action on Tuesday at non-conference rival Vermont Technical College.  VTC was 4-1 on the season coming into the game vs. Lyndon.

 LSC beat VTC 58-41 behind double digit scoring numbers from Lafont (11 points), Barclay (10), and Shauna Buck (11). Lawson led the battle for rebounds with 10 and scored an additional nine points in the game.

Lafont says the team this year shows a bit more promise than the team showed at this time last year.

"It's better just because we have more forwards, our freshmen are dedicated and want to play, so that helps a lot," said Lafont. "Plays always takes awhile, you're always going to mess up here and there in the game. Hopefully not, but that does tend to happen…compared to last year it's going a lot smoother."

One of the freshmen who will provide that added depth this year is guard Morgan Diltz.  She says she is pleased with the progress the team has made thus far and is optimistic about their chances this season.

"We just had our first two games so we can't expect to beat them by 1,000, but we're going to do better in the future, everyone clicks well," said Diltz.

LSC is playing a rigorous non-conference schedule in preparation for the NAC games when the team returns in January.

"With Endicott, Plymouth, and Middlebury, our non-conference schedule is pretty strong and that's to build us for the conference schedule," said Maloney.

To Lafont, the recipe for individual and team success this season is not complicated.

"Go into every game and know I played the hardest that I can," said Lafont in regards to her personal goal this year. "It's important that we all have that mindset, don't stop playing no matter what the score is."

The women's basketball home opener is set for Friday Dec. 3, vs. Bay Path College at 7:00 p.m. in the Stannard Gymnasium.