Former St. Hubert assistant coach Paul Fricker took the interim head coaching reins when Brian Kuzmick stepped away to spend more time with his family, which includes a recently-born infant. MARIA POUCHNIKOVA / TIMES PHOTO
For Meg Matthews, the shoe is now firmly fitted on the other foot.
Attend a St. Hubert varsity basketball game in 2014–15, and you’re likely to find a lot of new faces. The graduation of the program’s six seniors has left in its wake a plethora of inexperienced underclassmen; and perhaps more unexpectedly, there’s a new head coach, with assistant Paul Fricker taking the interim reins two weeks into the season when longtime boss Brian Kuzmick, with a new addition to his family, realized he needed to take some time away.
On the surface, things look a bit out of sorts. Following a 52–50 nonleague loss to Haddon Township on Saturday afternoon, the Bambies, a team that’s accustomed to finishing in the top-six of the Catholic League, fell to 3–7 overall. Their only league contest to date was a forgettable 57–37 whitewashing by top rival Archbishop Ryan, a team loaded with experienced returning players.
However, Matthews still remains, and that’s good news for the Bambies. A program stalwart since her freshman year, the junior became an All-Catholic player in the frontcourt, largely because she was surrounded by talented upperclassmen who helped show Matthews what it takes to compete and win in the Catholic League. Now, it’s Matthews’ show, and she’s doing her best to keep the program afloat in a transition season while instructing a roster that includes 11 freshmen and very few varsity minutes.
“We didn’t start off great, but I think a lot of that was losing our coach,” Matthews said after burning Haddon Township for 25 of her team’s 50 points. “Now we’re still getting to know each other a bit, and the whole team is starting to work together well. Personally, I love having the younger kids around, because they never stop. Like me, they’re very shy, personality-wise, so we try to do it through our play on the court.”
The Bambies put together a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde performance against Haddon. They scored the game’s first 11 points, including nine from a dominant Matthews; then, the opposition scored 37 of the next 49, opening up a 14-point advantage that the shell-shocked Bambies appeared unable to recover from. But Hubert’s then showed there is indeed talent left on this roster, scoring the next 16 unanswered before engaging in a wire-to-wire finish. In fact, the game was tied at 50 before Haddon converted a winning layup with 6.3 seconds to play, after Matthews had sunk two clutch free throws to tie it (she missed a long three-point attempt at the buzzer to win it).
“It was fun … not fun to lose, but a fun game to get back into and prove to ourselves we’re getting better, because we didn’t get down on ourselves when we lost the lead,” Matthews said. “It’s a growing process, but we do see ourselves getting better.”
When Matthews exited with foul trouble early in the fourth, the Bambies didn’t wilt under pressure. Junior Courtney Hoffman scored five big points, and freshman Caela Russell, in her first major crunch-time minutes, scored four of her own; when Matthews returned, St. Hubert held a 46–43 lead.
Matthews remembers what it was like playing impactful minutes as a freshman; now, she’s the leader, and she’s trying to get her young teammates to gain confidence by absorbing what she learned on her path to stardom.
“When I was younger, it was terrifying to be out there,” she said. “The seniors helped me through it and I got better, so that’s what I’m trying to do for the younger girls. We’re such a young team and we’re still growing, but being in a game like this shows us what we can do.”
It’s been quite a challenge for Fricker as well, transitioning from Kuzmick’s assistant to interim head coach. He’s got one senior — starter Emily Smith, who played sparingly on varsity last year — Matthews and a bunch of girls who are learning on the fly.
“I told them that I think we’re going in the right direction,” he said. “The first eight games or so we were out of sorts, but the maturation is evident. We’ve gone through every situation, and we just have to find that last piece, which is finding a way to win close games. That comes with experience. We made some mistakes, but that’s a part of the learning process. I’m proud of the effort.”
Of course, it helps that Fricker still has Matthews as his linchpin.
“She’s an absolute matchup nightmare,” he said. “She’s got a forward’s body, but she can take you off the dribble, she can shoot and clean up the boards, she can post up and she’s deadly in transition. As a team, we know where our bread is buttered. It goes through her, and she’s going to have to score 15 to 20 a night for us to be able to win.”
Kuzmick’s departure was “a shock to the system,” Fricker said, and Matthews admitted there have been potholes along the way.
“We miss him (Kuzmick), and I still kind of look around and say, ‘Where’s our coach?’ ” she said. “But Paul is doing a very good job, and it’s hard for him, inheriting a completely new team. We believe in him, and we think we can go far with him as our coach.”
The Bambies are likely still a year away, especially considering how tough the league is at the top. They get Matthews back for another season, and the youngsters will be another year older and wiser; by Fricker’s estimation, the Bambies have “five or six girls in the program who will be real good varsity players. If I can get them to the playoffs and get them to compete like they did today, I think I’ve done my job, then we’ll see what happens next year. It’s a process, a journey we’re going to take to the end.”
And even if the team wins less than it is accustomed to in 2015, its best player is still enjoying the rollercoaster ride.
“I’m having a blast,” Matthews said. “We don’t know each other that well yet, but that’s part of the fun. The chemistry was not good at first, but we’re getting better and putting ourselves together the best we can. You have to have confidence to play this game, and I have a lot of confidence in my ability.” ••
Follow the leader: St. Hubert junior Meg Matthews is the only returning Bambie with major varsity experience. Already an All-Catholic frontcourt selection, Matthews is going to need to do even more if her team is going to make it back to the postseason. Matthews scored 25 points in her team’s 52–50 loss to Haddon Township on Saturday. MARIA POUCHNIKOVA / TIMES PHOTO
