Breezy Three’s

By Collin Martin

The girls season started practice the week of Thanksgiving, with their first conference date being Dec 17, 2021. The senior varsity players are Charlotte Nutile, Kayla Weber, Alexa Ferraioli,and Bridgette Dudas. After some words with Coach Scotto, his expectations are that he wants the team to try as hard as they can for the upcoming games. He is also hoping for the varsity team to try to get close to a .500 record, meaning that he hopes to stay at a close tie of wins and losses, with expectations to pass it as much as possible. Scotto had previously coached soccer for 10 years, but he really enjoyed basketball, so when the opportunity came to grow as a coach and teacher he took it.

Now onto the Boys basketball season, it also started the week of Thanksgiving beginning with tryouts. Their opening shore conference date was Dec 17, 2021. This year's senior players are Aiden Skeie, Darren Barreau, Dan McCarthy, Rian O'rourke, Jake Parnell, Chris Mitchell, and Collin Reid. Going into the season, Balleta’s expectations for players were to play as hard as they possibly can every time they step onto the court. If they could do that and compete in every game, win or lose, he would be more than happy. If they can play as hard as possible day in and day out it gives a chance to win every game that they play. After some words from Coach Balletta, I had interviewed one of our Junior players, Michael Howlett. Mike has been playing basketball since 7th grade, but this is his first year as a Pinelands player. His current thoughts about the team and progress is as follows: “I think we are doing pretty good, but like any team we could do better. Each member of the team has untouched potential. Our practices are also going really great. I also want to say that we wouldn’t be in our current placement if it weren’t for our amazing coaches.”-MH Class of 2023