Twinfield-Cabot Girls with New Leadership and more Experience
by Ken Brown
MARSHFIELD – The Twinfield-Cabot girls’ basketball team will be coached by first year athletic director David Conover this winter as they face the challenge of their second season in the Mountain League.
Conover replaces Jason Cushing after three seasons of an ongoing rebuild of the program that dropped down to club level during the pandemic and has struggled to attract enough numbers to field both a varsity and junior varsity team in the same season. The Lady Trojans lost to Blue Mountain in the first round of the Division IV playoffs last year, winning just two games, and battling the growing pains of a young team in a highly competitive league. The program only lost Makayla Quintin to graduation and Conover has been practicing with 16 players and returns a talented core of athletes with a year of varsity experience under their belt.
“Coaching is my true passion and joy and I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to coach this great group of athletic girls with so much potential. We don’t have quite enough numbers to have a JV team, but we were able to create a practice squad where our younger players are able to continue to develop their individual skills and give our roster more depth and flexibility. We play in a tough league, so we have to learn to play to our strengths and build team chemistry through relationships. We’re taking a read and react approach where the girls trust me in what I am teaching in practice and I, in turn, trust them when they get into game situations on the court. We’re not going to quantify success by just what is on the scoreboard, but by also working at being the best version of ourselves on and off the court. This group has a lot of athletic versatility and I’m really excited to coach this team,” said Conover.
Kendall Fowler, Alice McLane, and Ginger Klarich return to provide leadership for a young Lady Trojan team that will have four seniors this winter. Fowler earned Third Team All-Mountain League honors last season after powering Twinfield-Cabot’s offense down the stretch. McLane was an Honorable Mention along with Jorga Washburn, and Klarich’s speed and athleticism will be a versatile asset both offensively and defensively.
“I think defense will be this team’s calling card and we have the athletic potential to go eight deep off the bench, providing quality minutes. The cooperative between Twinfield and Cabot has given us the potential to build a good program here. I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far in practice and scrimmages and we’ll continue to work on harnessing their athleticism to slow down enough to play together and create space and movement collectively as a team. This is a great group of kids and we’re all really excited for the season,” said Conover.
Twinfield-Cabot will welcome Peoples Academy to town on Friday to tip-off their season opener.
