Shaler Area girls basketball building confidence despite early struggles

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, December 20, 2018 | 8:09 PM

Learning on the fly is a difficult task in most situations.

The Shaler girls basketball team has taken some bumps in its learning process. Injuries and an early schedule loaded with top teams has the Titans off to an 0-5 start, including an 0-2 mark in Section 1-6A.

Results from Shaler’s game against winless section rival North Hills last Thursday were too late for this edition.

“We played one of the toughest schedules to start the season out probably than most teams in the WPIAL have,” Titans coach Cornelious Nesbit said. “When you are young, those older teams take advantage of things. We’re trying to keep building confidence with our young kids. Try to grow and learn every day and keep them mentally focused and getting them to realize their is an opportunity to learn and grow.”

The absence of center Claire Grunden has taken away some of Shaler’s scoring punch. In a 46-28 loss to Butler last Tuesday, the Titans never unable to score more than nine points in a quarter.

In the section opener, Shaler ran into two-time defending WPIAL Class 6A champion North Allegheny, which resulted in a 54-27 loss.

“We’ve had some bright spots,” Nesbit said. “Being young and having sophomores thrown into the fire, we should be better for it later in the season. I thought they’ve handle it well. We kind of fell apart in the third and fourth quarter. A lot of it is youth and lack of consistency.”

Tia Bozzo led Shaler with nine points against the Golden Tornado, and Meghan Lacey had six an Emily Cavacini contributed four.

The Titans are averaging 30.6 points.

“We’re getting what we thought out of Emily Cavacini,” Nesbit said. “We need to find that second consistent scorer. Once we find that, a lot of things will trickle down to our third and fourth scorer.”

Whatever it takes, Nesbit believes Shaler can continue to improve as the season progresses.

The schedule will get friendly for the Titans. Shaler plays six of its next 10 games at home.

“We’ll gameplan and figure out what a team’s strength and weaknesses are,” Nesbit said. “We want to make teams beat us.”

Josh Rizzo is a freelance writer.

Tags: Shaler