The beginning of the future for HSMSE basketball

Annabelle Shultz shooting a free throw / Din Islam

Both the High School for Math, Science, and Engineering boys’ and girls’ basketball teams are beginning the start of what appears to be successful futures. The Lady Dragons’ are now 5-5 as of this writing, piling up more wins than their previous three seasons combined. Meanwhile, the 1-8 record of the young boys' team, so far unfairly represents a well developing unit that contains only two upperclassmen.

The key to the great turnaround season for the Lady Dragons’ so far is freshman guard Annabelle Shultz.

“Everything starts with her," said head coach Jeremy Bassie. "She brings the ball coast to coast and finds Donna Fintzi for threes, and goes to the foul line and rebounds. We are very lucky to have her in the program."

Her presence creates a big three for the team similar to that of the Miami Heat. Fintzi and senior forward Mikaela Bloch no longer need to take control of every possession and instead can work more off the ball.

“We have a few freshmen who are more highly skilled than in years past which has allowed for Donna [Fintzi] not to have as much responsibility handling the ball so she can be more set up to shoot, instead of always having to shoot off the dribble and run around to so much. I think that has allowed her to really show off her shot a bit more because she doesn’t have to handle the ball as often,” said co-coach Nick Diunte.

For the boys' team, this season has showcased the vast improvement of a developing team. The team opted to go for a younger squad this year in order to develop players to replace the play of 1,000 point-scorer Kavan Edwards. Their game against Chelsea Career and Technical Education on January 9th, 2014 demonstrated this transition perfectly. Unlike their opening game of the season where senior guard Kofi Kordie was responsible for nearly all the points, the scoring was distributed well among the underclassmen.

“I think we've improved a lot of the whole year,” said coach David Scheiman. “We've improved so much, we’re competitive now. I honestly think that in two years we might have a shot at winning the division.”

It is crucial for for the Lady Dragons to replace the talent of Fintzi and Bloch if they want to continue their success. With Shultz already providing great talent in only her first year, already improving underclassmen may easily increase their contributions next season.

For the boys' squad, it is clear that they have a growing team which will only improve over time. The whole team, sparing the two seniors, have at least another two seasons together before graduation. This large amount of time that the team will be together, almost surely guarantees they will see an improvement over the next few years.

Video footage below of HSMSE boys' basketball team first victory of the season against Manhattan Village Academy on January 11, 2014.