Through seven games this season, the Pembroke Academy girls’ basketball team sat at 4-3 – not terrible, but nowhere near last year’s team that finished 17-3. With just one senior on this year’s roster, a different cast had to emerge.
And since a loss to Hollis-Brookline on Jan. 13, the young Spartans have grown up quickly, winning nine of 11 games to close out the regular season.
Heading into the start of the Division II playoffs on Wednesday, Pembroke sits in eighth in the standings. A matchup with local rival Merrimack Valley (11-7), a team that’s won seven in a row, awaits.
“We reached a little above where our expectations were,” head coach Steve Langevin said of the team’s success. “We didn’t have a bad loss, and we definitely got better as we went along. It’s kind of a building year because we had so many new people, and they kept winning while they were learning, which was really good.”
Games against Bow (18-0) and Pelham (16-2) in early January – both losses by more than 20 points – served as a wake-up call for the younger players. If they wanted to compete for a decent playoff spot, Bow and Pelham had set the bar.
Langevin looks at their second matchup with Bow on Feb. 2 as an indicator of their improvement. Despite a 55-35 loss, the Spartans trailed just 22-20 with a minute left before halftime. Contrary to the first matchup that the Falcons controlled from the beginning, Pembroke showed it could at least hang with one of the top-tier teams in the division.
Beyond just the youth, it also took time for the players to grow more comfortable playing with each other. Now they’ve improved tremendously at sharing the basketball, assisting on a high percentage of their made shots.
“They’re finding the open person much better now and playing off each other,” Langevin said.
The third-year Pembroke coach also points to the further improvement of junior Annelise Dexter.
On last year’s D-II semifinals team, Dexter co-anchored a formidable frontcourt with Ashley Stephens. With the latter graduated, opponents could focus more on slowing Dexter down.
“She’s really learned how to fight through defenders and to still get her shots,” Langevin said. “Now she’s getting shots pretty much wherever she wants. She’s taken a huge step of dealing with the frustration of people really trying to take you away but learning how to combat it.”
In addition to Dexter, Kaitlin Arenella’s growth has also paved the way for Pembroke’s surge down the stretch. Last season, Langevin said she was probably the fifth scoring option on the floor. Now, she’s one of their go-to players on offense.
While the offense significantly improved, Pembroke still has room to work on the defensive end. Langevin has a lot of height on his roster, but that generally means sacrificing some quickness on defense.
Still, that doesn’t take away from the fact that his team has continued to impress as they’ve accumulated more playing time at the varsity level.
And as Pembroke prepares to open the playoffs against MV on Wednesday, Langevin’s ready for what’s sure to be an intense battle.
The Pride started the year slow, losing seven of the first 11 games of the season, before reeling off seven straight victories to close out the season. MV features a stout defense, holding opponents to 39.4 points per game this season, but Bob McNutt’s team has struggled offensively. Even across the seven-game winning streak, the Pride scored more than 50 points just once.
Still, given the two programs’ familiarity with each other, Wednesday night’s matchup will likely be decided on the margins, as the first two games of the year have been.
“We know MV. That’s the big rival around here,” Langevin said. “We both know each other so well that it’s going to be hard to surprise anybody very much. … We know that they’re going to come ready to play. We know it’s going to be a big crowd, and it should be a lot of fun.
“And if we win, we get to go to Bow.”