Three games into the North Tonawanda season, they were in unfamiliar territory.
They had a new head coach at the helm and were 1-2 overall.
But then the switch finally flipped and the Lumberjacks went back to dominating.
They had gotten used to their new head coach, Ryan Bradt, and were back on the right track.
Following that 1-2 start, the Lumberjacks are now 14-2, while outscoring their opponents 1,050-799.
“I wouldn’t really say we’re doing anything different,” Bradt said. “We’re growing as a team and learning from each other and getting better every day at a time. I would say if we played ourselves, that team from two months ago, we probably beat that team by 20 … We just know we’re getting better one day at a time, as a team collectively … it’s just a completely different team than we were.”
After losing to Saint Mary’s of Lancaster to suffer their second loss, the Lumberjacks responded with an 88-43 win over Bishop Kearney on Dec. 11. During the 13-game winning streak, they have nine wins by double-digits.
The closest game by point differential during this streak is a three-point win, 69-66, over Hornell on Jan. 17.
“I would say trust in each other is really the biggest part,” North Tonawanda junior Maddie Caron said. “We all trust each other. We’re all just focused. We all just want to win every single game.”
The turnaround has come as the Lumberjacks have gotten more used to Bradt’s new schemes. He has come into his alma mater and completely changed the way the team plays. Offensively, he wants his offense to push the ball up the floor and concentrate on the pick and roll.
But with 11 players returning from last year’s roster, it took some time to take hold.
“It took a little bit of time for me to preach my defensive principles and what I want to do on offense and it’s a completely new offense than what they were running last year,” Bradt said. “ … They ran a lot of zone last year. We run a lot of man (to-man) and then we are basically the same team as last year, so all those girls had to adjust.”
Bradt’s practices are incredibly competitive as the players go through drills to try to improve. If they do not succeed in a drill, they are forced to run as a punishment.
The players do not want to lose and have to run. They want to beat their teammates and get better.
“It definitely motivates our teammates a lot,” Caron said. “No one wants to run, but it helps us a lot. It makes everybody at practice better by competing, from Anabelle to the younger girls; it just gets everybody better.”
The challenges have not ended once they learned Bradt’s systems. Instead, they got bigger and tougher with an independent schedule in their first year of life after the Niagara Frontier League.
The schedule has seen them travel throughout the Northeast, facing teams around the region and in Pennsylvania.
“It’s helped us a lot as every game we play has a playoff competition and atmosphere,” Bradt said. “(It) helped us learn how to respond to a little adversity and build our mental toughness.”
This season, the Lumberjacks have three players averaging over nine points per game: Anabelle Day (20.8), Lily Day (16.1), and Maddie Caron (9.3). The trio has combined to score 741 of the team’s 1,050 points this season.
As the trio and their teammates navigate their last two regular-season games and head into the postseason, Bradt’s biggest hope down the stretch is to get and stay healthy. This season, senior Jakayla Brown has missed three games with an ankle injury. During her final season, Brown is averaging 6.4 points, 1.5 assists, 6.8 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game.
She has been joined on the shelf by senior Ella Cashion and sophomore Makayla Marmot.
“I’d like to get fully healthy and … I would say we can always improve defense and rebounding,” Bradt said. “…But just getting healthy, … we’ve been missing our center the last few games and you know it’s definitely a lot easier to rebound when you have a 6-foot-3 center there.”
Last year, Caron and her teammates went 20-3 but lost to Starpoint in the Section VI Class AA title game.
After last year’s heartbreaking end, this year’s team is determined to have a better finish to this season.
“It would definitely mean a lot,” Caron said. “Everybody works super hard, everybody wants this goal. So it would definitely be super fun and it would be a big accomplishment.”