After ending last season with a disappointing 8-15 record, girls basketball looks to rebound this season with enormous expectations and a small squad.

The new team consists of just four seniors, two juniors, three sophomores and one freshman. Head coach Peter Kenah considers the small ten-player roster to be advantageous both this year and for future squads.

“Good things come in small packages; we have three girls with their third year starting,” Kenah says.  “To keep a bigger team would mean to have kids not playing”

With every player having a shot to start, there is pressure on all members to play their best both in games and practice.

“Everyone wants as much playing time as they can get,” returning junior Whitney Kolakowski says. “Everyone pushes themselves every practice.”

To gain an elusive spot, the players had to prove their talent during try-outs and the off-season, improving the overall quality of the squad.

“Our team has a higher skill level than before, which really contributes to our team’s development,” Kolakowski says. “The sophomores are all really good at different things; all of them together build the team as a whole.”

In addition to great talent on the players’ parts, the team benefits from Kenah’s coaching experience. Kenah has coached at Whitman for eight seasons now, giving him the third longest coaching tenure with a single girls basketball team in Montgomery County.

In addition to Kenah’s experience, seniors Caroline Kahlenberg, Kat Barth and Susan Russell, starting on varsity for the third consecutive year, will help guide the team.

“They’re a huge help; the experience they have, they’ve been in huge games before, they know what to expect,” Kenah says. “I don’t think you can really put a price on that kind of experience.”

With the strong leadership the seniors bring to the team, the Lady Vikes hope to bounce back from last years’ dismal season.

“This year we have a much more athletic team, we have a strong core of seniors, all four are captains this year,” says Barth. “Over the past year we’ve had a lot of captain meetings and captain workshops so we feel like we can really lead the team well this year and I think our team will really prove itself this year.”

The team has already started off strong, beating defending regional champions Blake and Georgetown Visitation as well as Clarksburg in scrimmages. The girls continued their preseason against some of the top teams in Maryland. They played twice against Seneca Valley, the favorite to win 3A states, and won both times, beat Bullis twice and tied and beat 4A west regional favorite Gaithersburg.

These scrimmages have given the Vikings a huge amount of confidence going into the season, bringing back hope that the program can return to their former glory as a county powerhouse.