Last season, the Emmaus girls basketball team played with four seniors who were pretty well seasoned and had played full-time through most of their varsity career. Ivy Forstater, Miryah Palko, Drea Watkins and Beth Wiseley provided a lot of leadership and experience. This season, the team will be much younger and will have just two senior players in Jenna Reid and Ashley Petre.

To go along with having a young team, first-year coach Jeff Williams also takes over a team that has had ups and downs over the past few seasons and finished last season at 12-12. The new East Penn Conference also has his team in what is likely to be the toughest of the divisions, featuring Central Catholic, Nazareth, Northampton and Parkland, who Emmaus will have to face twice during the season.

Part of Williams' job is to convince his players just how good they are both individually and as a team and getting them to believe that they can win.

"We've been talking about that throughout the summer," said Williams. "It's true, if you don't think you're going to hit the next shot, you're not going to hit the next shot. Even if you've missed your last 10, you've got to be confident and even more so with this team, because I know we're going to see a lot of zone. They'll try to take Kiyae [White] out of the game and they have to be able to hit that shot, so I need these girls to believe it and build that confidence."

The team features three players - Jenna Lessel, Destanee Watkins and White - who will form the core of the team. All three have varying degrees of varsity experience and the skills that the team will need to be successful.

"I'm looking to them for that leadership role," said Williams. "Kiyae and Destanee have a lot more varsity minutes and I think that a lot of our varsity minutes come from those two girls and they're a junior and a sophomore."

White was named the most improved player on the team last year and Watkins was honored as the team's top defensive player, giving Williams leadership on both sides of the court.

While White is just a sophomore and Watkins is a junior, both have shown great poise on the court.

"I am ready," said White about helping to lead the young team. "It motivates me to be where I'm helping other girls and they actually keep me working hard, so it's a good experience and I'm ready to take it on this year and see how everything goes."

Watkins, the younger sister of Drea Watkins, believes that defense is going to be a part of what the team will come to be known for this season.

"I think we have a really good defense so far," said Watkins. "So if we just keep talking and pick it up, we're going to win games off defense from the turnovers, because we can finish the transition."

Watkins isn't shying away from taking on a leadership role with the team.

"It's an honor that he told me that, because my sister was a leader and I saw what she did and I'll just follow in her footsteps," said Destanee Watkins. "I learned that sometimes you want to get down, but you have to pick each other up and not yell at each other."

Emmaus opens the season Tuesday night on the road at East Stroudsburg North, with their home opener coming on December 12 against Pocono Mountain East.