When Michelle Nicholls, the previous coach of the Stuyvesant’s girls’ handball team, the Furies, stepped down after two seasons with the team, the girls were left without a coach. Sophomore Sweenly Liu, the Furies’s third singles player, approached Chemistry teacher Kristyn Pluchino about the coaching vacancy. Pluchino, though hesitant at first, agreed to fill the position. “I’ve played a couple of times, but all the girls on the team could absolutely kill me,” Pluchino said.

However, Pluchino’s limited handball experience has not stopped the athletes from playing with the same precision they did last year. Although the Furies have cruised to a 5-0 record this season and seem to be on pace to go undefeated again, the team hopes to go deeper into the playoffs. “This year’s team is definitely better than last year’s. Our goal is to go undefeated again,” senior, captain, and second singles player Karen Mui said.  Last year’s team won all 10 of their regular season games but lost in the first round of the playoffs to Townsend Harris High School by a score of 3-2.

However, junior Jennie Lok believes that this year’s team will be better prepared because “this year we’re playing teams that we don’t usually play and are not in our division, like Bronx Science and High School of Environmental Studies, and I think they’re going to be our biggest challenges,” she said.

Pluchino holds practices two to three times a week for three hours. During practice, the team does accuracy and kill drills and practices receiving long, high serves.  The regulation size handball, only 4.8 centimeters in diameter, is smaller than the balls used in most recreational courts.  “I see a lot of improvement in our new players,” Pluchino said. “It generally takes a lot of time for people to get used to the small ball, but the new girls picked it up really fast.”

Juniors Maggie Huang and Canny Chen, both first-year players on the team, played in their first doubles game on Friday, April 3 against John F. Kennedy High School, easily winning their match 21-0. Huang crushed 10 aces during the game.

Still striving to improve, the Furies, like many teams at Stuyvesant, often find themselves fighting for a gym to practice in. They are competing with the boys’ handball team for space in the 6th floor gym. “We have to get more practices in because all the other teams have practice every day, and it’s hard to practice every day because we have to share the gym with the boys,” Lok said.

With enough practices and dedication, the Furies’ goal this season is to finally get past the first round of the playoffs that has halted the team the past two years. Although this is Pluchino’s first season as coach, she has, like the team, set her expectations high. “I think that we can duplicate the undefeated season, get the new people involved, and hopefully win our first playoff game,” Pluchino said.