Youthful Malverne shows progress

The Malverne girls’ basketball team has found itself in a challenging situation this winter, with seven of the club’s nine players being underclassmen. Like many young squads before them, the Lady Mules have suffered through their share of growing pains.

An example of this occurred last Friday night, when Malverne fell in a road matchup against Cold Spring Harbor, by the final score of 56-30. The Lady Mules kept the game close through two quarters, only trailing by six at halftime, but let the contest get away from them in the final 16 minutes.

Malverne had a difficult time containing Lady Seahawks’ junior Caroline Kiernan, who registered 31 points.

“We just were struggling to get ourselves in good defensive position, and weren’t doing it early enough to stop her,” Lady Mules head coach Lorenzo Jenkins said. “We need to do a better job of committing ourselves to being in the proper position.”

Jenkins also acknowledged that certain uncontrollable circumstances limited his team’s practice time in the days leading up to the game.

“Our main gym was being used for testing this week,” he said. “(As a result) our conditioning wasn’t up to the level it needed to be to compete.”

Junior Keyaria Dawson and sophomore Diana Jean still had strong offensive nights in a losing effort for Malverne. Dawson finished with a team-high 12 points, while Jean added eight points. 

Even though positive results have not been consistently seen on the scoreboard for the Lady Mules this season, Jenkins believes his team is showing signs of progress.

“We’re definitely heading in the right direction,” he said. “Our players are not down on themselves. They understand what’s going on. They know we got to put the work in over the upcoming summer, and then we’ll be in a good position.”

Jenkins sees plenty of promise in Malverne’s young developing core group, which includes Keyaria Dawson and Jean, along with players like sophomore Alexis Lake and freshman Quateka Dawson. The coach also believes that despite its inexperience, his team is capable of being competitive right now.

“We’re definitely not counting this year out yet,” Jenkins said. “I feel like we can beat everybody we face. It’s just a matter of us putting it all together.”

After last Friday’s defeat, three games remained on the Lady Mules’ regular-season schedule. On Monday, after press time, Malverne faced off against Carle Place. The club will next visit East Rockaway on Thursday, and then Wheatley next Monday.

Over the next week of action, Jenkins hopes to see his team correct some of the sloppy play that has been plaguing his squad throughout the year, and also find a way to earn some crucial late season victories. 

“We would like to see some W’s,” he said. “We want to see the team finish games strong. We definitely need to cut down on turnovers. Turnovers have been an issue for our team all season. If we can do that, and get some stops, we’ll be alright.”