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Sports

A Season Full of Growing Pains

Batavia girls basketball coach Tim DeBruycker reflects upon the 2010-11 campaign while turning his attention toward next year.

The players hadn’t even emerged from the locker room yet after the team’s season-ending Class 4A regional tournament defeat before Batavia girls basketball coach Tim DeBruycker began talking about next season.

That was no slight to the two graduating seniors from this year’s squad, Katie Baglieri and Maddie Sychta. When 12 of the 14 players on the varsity roster are eligible to return a year from now, it seemed only natural to begin start thinking about the 2011-12 campaign.

“I guess it’s not too early to look ahead because the season’s over,” DeBruycker said after the Bulldogs’ 64-48 regional loss to St. Charles East last week. “You have to look to next year.”

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Batavia, which finished 8-19 overall and went 4-5 during its inaugural season as a member of the Upstate Eight Conference River Division, got off to a rocky start even before the Nov. 16 season opener with Glenbard South.

That’s when the Bulldogs’ expected starting point guard, sophomore Sami Villarreal, was diagnosed with a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL injury) and underwent season-ending knee surgery.

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While preaching patience, DeBruycker is looking forward to having Villarreal back on the court next season.

“Depending on who you talk to, she’s expected back anywhere between July and October,” DeBruycker said. “I don’t want her to rush back. If she’s not a part of our summer stuff, that’s OK. As long as she comes back healthy November 1 or whatever day that first day of tryouts is, then that will be good for us.

“It will give us one more weapon, which we would have liked to have seen more this year,” the coach added.

Without Villarreal, freshman Liza Fruendt stepped in and performed admirably as the Bulldogs’ starting point guard. While there were admittedly some growing pains along the way, Fruendt wound up as the team’s leading scorer and top 3-point shooter.

“Liza stepped in and did a good job,” said DeBruycker. “I think she learned a lot about varsity basketball.”

Fruendt drained five 3-pointers while scoring a team-leading 18 points in Batavia’s postseason loss to St. Charles East.

The Bulldogs also received solid season-long contributions from juniors Tamar Norville, Michaela Strehlau, Mariah Zwart, Kaytlin St. Clair, sophomores Katie Ryan, Miranda Grizaffi, and freshman 6-1 center Erin Bayram.

The 5-10 Ryan, in particular, figures to be a player to watch next season. During Batavia’s Senior Night loss to Streamwood, Ryan finished with 11 points and 14 rebounds in a relentless effort.

“Katie’s extremely athletic,” said DeBruycker. “She has no fear going after the basketball. Now we’ve got to work on her finishing skills. She’s a sophomore so some of that will come.”

DeBruycker knows nothing will come without a strenuous off-season program.

“What are the girls going to do to get better?” the coach asked. “We’ve got 12 girls out of the 14 coming back, but those girls need to get better. Don’t think that ‘hey, I started every game,’ which some of them did, or that ‘I started a lot games,’ which some of them did. I say let’s get better.

“Let’s improve because we need those players to improve,” added DeBruycker.

 

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