WILKES-BARRE — There will be no sneaking up on Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 girls basketball opponents.
Pittston Area’s worst-to-first season within the division landed coach Jeff Gregory recognition as the state Class 5A Coach of the Year from Pennsylvania Sports Writers, gained Kallie Booth multiple citations as the division’s top player and resulted in point guard Daniella Ranieli being a first-team all-star as a freshman.
The word is out on the Lady Patriots.
“Sometimes it’s a little bit harder coming back trying to defend something than it is being in the middle of the pack and trying to win for the first time,” said Gregory, who led the Lady Patriots 1-11 in the division and 4-13 overall in 2020-21 to 12-2 and 24-5 in 2021-22. “How are you going to be knowing that people are all coming to give you their best shot?”
That message has gotten to senior Ava Callahan, who joined Booth and Ranieli in combining for nearly five 3-pointers a game last season.
“We’re not a secret this year,” Callahan said. “We’ve got a target on our back this year.”
While others are pursuing Pittston Area, the Lady Patriots still have something to chase.
“We’re hoping to stay as reigning champs of the Wyoming Valley Conference and we definitely have to get back to the arena and finish what we started,” Booth said of the 38-31 loss to Abington Heights in the District 2 Class 5A title game. “We had a slip-up last year.”
The three guards, who accounted for more than 70 percent of the team’s scoring last season, all return, but Pittston Area has to come up with some new players in the frontcourt.
Taylor Baiera, a 5-foot-7 senior forward on a team without a player taller than 5-8, already saw steady playing time last season when she was Pittston Area’s fifth-leading scorer. She will occupy one of the other two starting positions this season.
“I definitely have to step up this year because we lost a lot of our bigs,” Baiera said, “but we have also have the young girls coming up this year who are going to help.”
Sophomore guard Maddie Karp also has experience.
Junior guard Rowan Lazevnick and sophomore forward Ella O’Brien are others competing to either land the fifth starting spot or become the top options off the bench.
