Northampton head girls’ basketball coach Jeff Jacksits believes time will be on his team’s side.

The Konkrete Kids basically have a new cast in their starring this winter from last year’s 23-9 team that advanced to the second round of the state playoffs. Beginning this week, Northampton had a 4-1 record to begin this week’s play.

“By midseason, we hope to have better chemistry with each other,” said Jacksits, who is in his 20th year at the helm. “We are getting better and the kids are trusting each other.

“The girls are still figuring out their roles, and how to finish better.”

Last week, the Kids dropped a 58-30 decision to Parkland and recorded wins over Liberty (34-31) and Bangor (47-46).

“Parkland has been a hurricane,” said Jacksits. “They beat us badly and then they demolished Nazareth worse than us. We had to play them in a man (defense) and they spread us out. Their guards were able to take over.

“The Liberty and Bangor games were mirror images of each other. Against Liberty, we were up 11 at the half and eight at the start of the fourth quarter. We gave up too many shots against Bangor, and we had to hold on at the end. We let them back into the game.

“We have to be able to finish games.”

Jacksits noted that senior center Grace Lesko needed 11 points in her next game to reach the 1,000-point mark for her career. Lesko has been the team’s leading scorer all season. She had 15 against Parkland, 14 against Liberty, and 19 against Bangor.

Editor’s note, Lesko would accomplish this feat against Central Tuesday night, scoring 18 points.

“The other girls can tend to rely on her (Lesko) too much,” said Jacksits. “Grace can also put some undue pressure on herself.

“It will be good to get this over with. This can tend to be a distraction. The girls can feel a lot better because of it.”

Jacksits is hoping to get more offense from fellow senior Nicole Yellen, who is their other returning starter.

“She has to be more aggressive as far as scoring,” said Jacksits. “We are counting on her to be our second-leading scorer.

“Nicole has been a scorer in the second half, but we need her to score in the first half. She is a good leader in a new role, but she has to pick up her game a little.

Jacksits praised the play of senior Maddie Hurst, Kadee Schrader and Sophie Steirer along with sophomore Annie Beenders.

“Maddie has hit some big threes for us,” said Jacksits. “Kadee and Steirer have been doing OK in the middle for us and have played good defense and rebounded. Annie is a young backup point guard who is making progress for us.”

The Kids had Allentown Central Catholic Tuesday and then East Stroudsburg North Friday. They will play Bethlehem Catholic Dec. 20 and then face Pocono Mountain West in the opening round of their tournament at the end of the month.

Jacksits sees Parkland, Bethlehem Catholic and Easton as the top teams in the East Penn Conference. For his team it will continue to be a waiting game.

“We’ll see how we come out this week,” he said. “Bethlehem Catholic will be a tough game. They are very good. The Christmas tournament will be a good test for us.

“We need to work on miking up our defenses. I don’t like to sit in a 3-2 zone all game. We’re learning and it will take us some time. But we can’t have lapses and let teams back into games.