Schalmont girls' basketball takes big step forward

Rotterdam

Schalmont girls' basketball coach Jeff Van Hoesen had an inkling his squad could be special this season. So did his players, just maybe not quite as special as things have been thus far.

The Sabres (19-1), winners of 17 straight contests, earned the No. 1 seed in the 22-team Class B bracket Wednesday at the Section II seeding meeting in Saratoga Springs. They will play Saturday at home against the winner of Thursday's contest between No. 17 Watervliet and No. 16 seed Catskill.

"I knew we were going to better than last year, but if someone had told me we'd be 19-1, I would have been super excited," Van Hoesen said. "I think when we got about halfway through the year, we felt if we could keep growing, we're going to be a very tough team. Once we beat Mekeel and Holy Names, we felt we were one of the better teams."

"This is definitely different," Schalmont sophomore point guard Payton Graber said. "We definitely have more pressure on us now as the No. 1 seed. There are a lot of good teams in Class B. There is a lot of competition."

"I kind of knew we would be a good team. We work well together and have good chemistry," Schalmont sophomore guard Haley Burchhardt said.

Schalmont, a squad starting one senior, three sophomores and one eighth-grader, suffered a 54-36 setback against Holy Names in its third game of the season.

"We didn't play well on defense and turned the ball over too much," Graber said. "As we have progressed through the season, we didn't do much of that."

"We learned from our mistakes in that game and came back to beat them the next game (48-40 on Jan. 31)," Burchhardt said.

Graber and Burchhardt, both prominent varsity performers since they were seventh-graders, are captains this season along with senior forward Emily Lenehan. Those two...