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Go for it
Ines Goryanova, left, and Janeya Grant, far left. Twin Vizuals photos.
It starts tonight in Canada. The goal, the expectation, is for it to end in North Carolina.
Putnam Science Academy’s girls’ basketball team begins its sixth season with a three-game showcase event in Ontario, and the end goal for this talented squad is to claim its first national championship in mid-February.
“We are a very highly skilled team, who works great together and can get better throughout the year,” said returning point guard Ines Goryanova. “We are holding ourselves to a standard of winning a national championship because we know we can. At the end of the day no one wants to lose therefore anything less will be disappointing. But we won’t be thinking of losing.”
In addition to Goryanova, the Mustangs return four players – Janeya Grant, Jada Mills, Astou Ndiaye, and Genevive Wedemeyer— who played major minutes on last year’s team that finished fourth, plus three others — Hailey Johnson, Zuza Komor, and Bri Mead — who played on PSA’s second team.
And they have added some talented pieces, including a high-major Class of 24 recruit in Kelian “KC” Cedano, Stetson University commit Sophia Fontaine, and Amany Lopez.
“We’re going to play about as fast as you can play,” coach Devin Hill said. “The talent level is probably more than last year but it’s not as much balance.
“But the best version of this team, yeah, that’s what I see for them, a national championship.
People have to buy in, pull in the same direction, do all the things winning teams have to do. There’s no way we’re going to win if we’re sitting here in four months talking about the same things.”
While Goryanova and Cedano, and Grant and Fontaine to a little lesser extent, figure to get the bulk of the shots, history says everyone is going to have to have their day.
“They really have to respect what the person to their right or left brings to the team,” Hill said. “You have to have confidence in yourself but still maybe even say, ‘This person is a better shooter, I’m going to give it up to them.’ That can be hard. That’s a different level of maturity.
“They have to understand too, every game is not going to be your game. You might have a bad couple of weeks, and then come back and be great. You have to stick with it. It happens.”
Hill said too that the Mustangs have to be tougher than they were last year when they went 12-7 but held leads in five of the losses.
“We have to be more focused,” Hill said. “They got too relaxed at certain times when they got a lead, and that’s mental toughness. Hopefully the fact that they went through it, they should understand more. And we have some different players who can settle us down. Someone like Sophia has been there a million and one times. She’s not a guard but she’s a presence.”
The Mustangs have about 40 games on their schedule this year, though that includes games for both teams in the program. It includes a number of showcase and tournament events, plus games against Blair Academy and Westtown, both of whom beat PSA last year, Tilton, and TPLS. PSA opens its home schedule on Oct. 27 against CCRI.
“We have to gel throughout the year, and as the games go by,” Goryanova said. “We have to be coachable. There can be no selfishness. We have to have a winning mentality.”
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
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