Women Cagers to Face Bentley Tonight

"We never established our game last season. No one was pleased with our results, or with the way we played. This year I think we can do better."

As coach Carole Kleinfelder surveys her women's hoop squad and the long 23-game season that begins tonight in a match-up against Bentley College, there is both determination and a carefully-guarded optimism in her voice. If she appears less than cocksure, it is with good reason.

Last year was a disaster. The hoopsters' record of 12-14 overall (4-6 in the Ivies) tells a story of sporadic flashes of individual brilliance continually undermined by inconsistency. It's an old, well-known song. The hoopsters had the talent; especially in a new batch of freshmen pointguards who could shoot liketop-paid hitmen, effectively catalyse an offense, and who weren't afraid to intimidate the opposition.

Now sophmores Ann Scannell, Pat Horne, Kate Martin, Franessa Hall, and jumpshot specialist Nancy Boutilier will make up the backbone of this year's squad. Last year's co-captains Wendy Carle and Caryn Curry are gone, and though neither had what you could call a memorable season they harbored a good deal of experience, something this young team lacks badly.

Six-footers Karen Smith and Elaine Holpuch are back, so Harvard won't suffer for lack of height. Kleinfelder predicts Smith will be a potent force this year. The willowy junior played occassionally brilliant games last season but never seemed toreachher potential, another victim of the hoopsters' inconsistency epidemic.

In the way of newcomers, there are very few. Soccer phenom Laurie Gregg joins the squad after two years of college hoop at her former alma mater, Lehigh University. Freshman Janet Judge has looked strong in practice and could add some key height and shooting ability to the team.

The challenge that now lies for Kleinfelder is to take a squad of basically the same line-up as last year, the same level of ability, with perhaps a notch or two more of experience and composure, and turn it into a winning one. And how? No new plans in sight:

"We'll keep to the basics at first, try to do the fundamentals well. Then and only then will we move on," Kleinfelder says. Whether caution will pay off or not will depend on how well the hoopsters can consistently perform these basics. Last year they were able to do everything but the basics--shooting, passing, rebounding, to name a few of the most common.

Today's game at Bentley should be a good proving ground for the new line-up. The business-bound bunch from Waltham annually produce a tough hoop squad, and the Crimson can't afford to be tentative on its first night out. If the '80-81 version of the women hoopsters is to be as consistent as Kleinfelder hopes, they'll have to begin now--the squad plays its first three matches on the road and doesn't appear until it plays BC. on December 8.