With fall sports ending after the Southwest Preparatory Conference Championships, the winter sports preseason has kicked off with many teams starting training and conditioning, including the girls varsity basketball team

The team started their preseason workouts on Sept. 2, two months before the start of the real season.

“The preseason workouts that we started after Labor Day are optional,” said Head Coach Darryn Sandler ’95.

This year, the coaches offered optional practices and the turnout of people in practices was higher than it has been in previous years.

“We actually had got a lot of people to come but sometimes that was due to a conflict of the other days,” said Director of Sports Performance Jessen Houston.

While practices for preseason were only for a few weeks, training in the High Performance Center during the season is mandatory for all members of the team and the team managers.

Houston along with HPC Adjunct Coach Katherine Zarembski have been overseeing the team’s workouts and guiding their training.

During preseason, the team focused on injury prevention, power development and movement mechanics.

“We also have to focus on kids who are de-conditioned, we have to focus on keeping them in shape to go through the motions of a long season,” said Houston.

Sessions occurred three days a week, with two mandatory and one optional.

Now that the new season has officially begun and fall sports are over, mandatory practices started on Monday, Nov. 6 and the girls had their first tournament on Nov. 10.

After coaching basketball for 21 years, Sandler has new goals for the new season.

“Our goal is to build a culture that people want to be a part of and reach our potential,” said Sandler. “I feel like those two kind of go hand in hand.”