By Kai-Lou Yue
Staff Writer
With the girls’ basketball season coming up, Samantha Hyslip, a junior at Westford Academy, is all geared up and excited for the basketball tryouts and games. Hyslip is a forward on the varsity team, and this will be her third season playing for WA.
“I love my position because I love posting up and rebounding,” said Hyslip.
The tryouts were held on the 26th of November, and will continue into today. According to Hyslip, the girls do some defensive and offensive drills, a fair amount of running to see who is in shape, and they also scrimmage against each other.
Hyslip said, “tryouts are an important beginning to the season to see who has been keeping up their practicing and working hard.”
Hyslip is confident that she will get into the team this year, as she made the team in previous years, and she has been working hard and playing basketball all year round. She is also sure that the team will do well this year.
“I am confident that with a good work ethic we will have a successful season…we only lost two players, which of course was a bummer, but is manageable,” said Hyslip.
According to Hyslip, the girls are a closely-knit group, and the team has many special traditions.
“We all wear matching tape on our sneakers to honor the memory of a WA student. We also wear matching pre-wrap during games and have the same warm-up every year,” said Hyslip
Hyslip also plays soccer during the fall. However, she says that it isn’t too hard to make the switch from playing basketball to soccer, as she plays basketball year round. Also, the basketball teams offers open gyms for people throughout the fall to play basketball, and that allows the teams to get a head start before the season officially begins.
“The part that makes it hard is that I am always a little sad to be ending my soccer season,” said Hyslip, “but I am always so excited for [basketball] to start up because I love my team mates.”
Hyslip has high hopes and a number of goals for the varsity team this year, which she hope will come to fruition.
“This year, I hope to work harder to achieve new goals and make our season a bit longer,” said Hyslip.
