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WEIRTON -- There always is optimism in basketball camps this time of year, and at the Madonna girls practices, there was a very good reason to be excited. There are eight girls, including the entire starting five back in the fold.
The Lady Dons have a new coach in Cory Wingett, but he is very familiar with the girls and the program after spending the past three years as an assistant to Rodney Boniti, who decided to step down after coaching for many years at St. Joseph Middle School and with the Blue Dons.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, it should be a smooth transition, as the team lost only two players, one of whom only played in five games. Senior center Kennedy Martin broke a bone in her foot during the fifth game last year and was forced to sit out the remainder of the season. That loss was a big blow to the Lady Dons, as she had been the team's second-leading scorer and leading rebounder as a junior, gaining honorable mention all-state recognition. Madison Costello, who contributed last year in special ways, also graduated.
Wingett will build the 2020-21 team around three seniors in Jazzy Melnyk, Alaina Moore and Marianna Martinez. Melnyk, a starter since her freshman season, emerged as the leading scorer and rebounder last year after Martin's injury. She earned postseason honors and now has an outside chance to reach Madonna's coveted 1,000-point club. She would probably be a shoe-in to reach that plateau if she hadn't missed a large part of her freshman season with a knee injury.
Moore, at 6-foot-1 athlete with a wide wing span, will fill in nicely for Wingett in the post. He said Moore has worked very hard on her game during the summer and shows a lot of improvement from last year.
"Both of those players are getting multiple looks from small colleges," Wingett said. "We're very happy about that.
"The other two potential starters that are returning are just as important. We have Vanessa Alatis, who started as a sophomore last year, and another junior in Anna Backel, who also is a returning starter. Those two gave us very good outside play as guards last year. We finished the season last year starting three juniors and two sophomores. We ended up 9-12 and lost to Cameron in the sectional tournament."
Wingett added that he has two other varsity players from last year's team. Adrianna Lenhart is a senior and Julia Wingett is a sophomore. He said the guard unit will be bolstered this year by the return of Michaela Battista, who played as a freshman and sophomore but sat out last season.
"Michaela is just a great young lady," coach Wingett said. "She has basketball in her blood and has potential to contribute in many ways."
There are three seniors that have joined the team this year: Casey Yacos, who transferred from Weir High last year; Miranda Sole, who Wingett says is one of the best athletes in her class having starred in softball and volleyball; and Lizzy Bain.
Younger players who Wingett says will start out on the jayvee team but feels they have the potential to step in and help the varsity if needed are freshmen Liz Bine and Mia Pietranton, along with Olivia Bain and Julianna Velegol, both sophomores.
Like all the schools in West Virginia, coach Wingett started practice Nov. 9 and had a whole week of work before the state decided to suspend all winter sports.
"We had a full week of practice, and they announced the suspension," Wingett said. "So, now we have girls that had high hopes and all of a sudden had the rug pulled out from under them."
Wingett is excited about the upcoming season because of the talented players, most of which saw considerable varsity action last year.
"Returning eight of 10 varsity players from last year is a nice challenge to have," he said. "They all worked hard on their games over the summer, and they all worked extremely hard the week we were able to practice. I've been in the program for five years now, and we plan to keep about half of the program basically the same. The girls know the program well, but we're going to put our own touch to it.
"We've had a lot of success over the past four years with what we've been doing, so we want to run with it. We would like to speed up the basic game a little bit, and that may be one of the major changes people will see."
Wingett's staff includes Jason Heckathorn, a teacher at Madonna, and Rocky Bragg, who is a former girls head coach and assistant.