Sain has the Delaware Valley girls ready to play the new season

WESTFALL - Graduations, transfers and incoming freshman remake rosters each and every year, and the key to managing a successful team is having the right person drawing the X’s and O’s on the whiteboard. For the Delaware Valley girls’ basketball team, the man with the squeaky marker is head coach Joe Sain. “I played four years of college ball at Lockhaven University. I have coached basketball for thirty years. I coach golf, I coach some softball, I coach a little bit of everything. This is my 16th year with the girls. But I have had junior high boys, JV boys and varsity boys,” Sain said. “Pretty much had the racket the whole way through.” As if Sain’s multiple years’ experience weren’t enough, he is joined by a top flight coaching staff. “Leslie Clementoni is the varsity assistant. She played four years at Susquehanna University,” Sain said. “Bernadine Sally played three or four years at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, and Donna Donagan played a few years at Orange County Community College. Our staff is a great staff.” Despite the strong staff courtside, Sain knows he has his work cut out for him this winter. “We have a challenging year ahead of us. We lost two of our top three scorers. We have three seniors back, a couple of juniors back. We have three starters missing from last year. We’re looking to be as competitive as possible. We could be starting as a very young lineup with only one or two seniors,” Sain said. “There is a mixture of sophomores and juniors that is going to make up most of our roster.” With a young lineup, Sain is ready to make adjustments to the offense. “I don’t know if the approach is going to change, but there are some things I am going to be doing a little bit differently, yeah. We have always had a team scoring mentality,” the coach said. “This year we might have more individuals scoring. So that might be more of a change.” On the other end of the floor, don’t expect the Lady Warriors to make too many changes. “The defense will stay the same,” Sain said. “Man to man all the way.” Russ Crespolini is the online editor for Straus Newspapers and can be reached at 845-782-4000 ext. 352 or at webmaster@strausnews.com.