The Phoenix season was on the line on Monday, February 4. With only two games left in their season, the girls’ varsity basketball team needed to win against the High School of Art and Design in order to stay in the playoff race, which requires a minimum .500 win record.
But the Phoenix faltered by a score of 40-19. At the Stuyvesant gymnasium two days later, they lost their final game of the season to School of the Future by a score of 36-31, ending their season with a 5-9 record.
The team’s main objective this season was to make the playoffs. “It would be a step back if we didn’t make [playoffs] this year because we made it last year,” coach Michelle Nicholls said, shortly before the Phoenix dropped out of playoff contention. Last year, the team qualified for the playoffs with a 7-7 record, but lost in the first round to South Bronx High School.
“Turnovers, I think, were our main mistakes,” senior and co-captain Katherine Pan said. Throughout the season, the Phoenix had played several games in which they committed over 20 turnovers. The game against Art and Design was no different.
“Turnovers always broke our momentum. They definitely hurt our chances of going to the playoffs. It was hard for us to take control of the game. We could never finish or consistently keep up the good work,” junior and co-captain Tina Khiani said.
After losing three seniors starters from last year, the returning players were expected to work much harder than they did the previous year. “It wasn’t completely rebuilding the team,” Nicholls said. “But the players had to step it up.”
All of this season’s starters had received a significant amount of playing time last season. The Phoenix season began a little shaky, but they seemed to pull together towards mid-season, as the number of turnovers per game dwindled.
“The team never actually gave up and we had a pretty positive attitude throughout the whole season,” junior and co-captain Kate O’Dowd said. The tough stretch near the end of the season caused the playoffs to slip out of the team’s grasp.
Though they fell short of what last year’s Phoenix team achieved, this year’s team developed greatly. O’Dowd, who replaced Lisha Li (‘07) as the starting point guard earlier this season, has done a phenomenal job, according to her team. “She’s able to penetrate through the defense so that people guard her, which opens up shooters,” sophomore Imelda Ko said.
Khiani, a returning starter, “is able to play a guard and forward position, which really helps,” Nicholls said. The ability of two new starters, Ko and fellow sophomore Kelly Quinn, also helped bolster the starting lineup.
“As a whole, we were sticking together,” O’Dowd said.
“Everyone on the team had their skills. Kate had her dribble and Tina had her shots. We just needed to put together our skills,” Ko said.
Through the development of the players and the collective progress as a team, the Phoenix know they have better playoff chances next season. “The team has made a lot of progress throughout the whole season and even though it may not show in our record or our scores, it’s still there,” Khiani said.
Because only one senior on the team is graduating, a considerable majority of the team will be preparing and looking forward to next season. As the mythical phoenix is known for its powers of rebirth, the Phoenix team will re-establish itself through hard work come next winter. “We have the same goals for next season, to make the playoffs, which is definitely reachable,” O’Dowd said.