BRIDGEWATER — One phone call shifted the offseason for Cheryl Seavey.
After last year’s loss to Bishop Feehan in the Division 1 Elite Eight, the longtime Bridgewater-Raynham girls basketball coach knew her team would return this winter ready for a bounce-back.
Then her phone rang. It was Natalia Hall-Rosa, the reigning Southeast Conference MVP. The rising senior formally announced her transfer to The Rivers School, a Weston-based institution in the Independent School League (ISL).
“There’s no ill-will at all. She was just seeking something different, and that’s OK,” said Seavey. “I have to focus on who’s here in front of me, and who’s going to take that piece of the pie that was lost.”
“I really challenged the kids in the preseason to step up and take that chunk (of responsibility),” added Seavey. “Who’s going to assume those minutes? Who’s going to assume those rebounds, those points? It doesn’t have to be one person. It can be multiple people to do the job, as long as you add it up to that number (of Hall-Rosa’s 19.4 points, 7.7 rebounds per game last year).”
With the midway point of the season in view, these 6-1 Trojans have started to reveal the answers to those questions.
In Monday’s 70-46 win over North Quincy, the three-headed monster of senior Reese Bartlett (17 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists), senior Brenna Woodbury (17 point, 6 assists, 5 rebounds, 6 steals) and sophomore Camden Strandberg (14 points, 3 assists) shouldered much of the workload.
Bartlett, a Colby College commit, and Woodbury each received shoutouts on our All-Scholastic teams at last season’s end. Together, they unite to form perhaps the local scene’s top backcourt.
“I am absolutely biased — in my opinion, they are,” Seavey vouched. “They’re both such basketball junkies. They understand the game. They see the game. With the physical tools they both have, that’s a real dynamic duo that I have.”
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No surprise there. Then enter Strandberg, a tall, two-way forward capable of maneuvering on the perimeter with the green light to hoist jumpers. She split time between the J.V. and varsity squads last winter, and now highlights the Trojans’ front line as the team’s new third scoring option.
Strandberg runs cross country in the fall and can “run all day,” said Seavey. That was the perfect springboard into a breakout sophomore basketball season, as she ranks sixth in the Southeast Conference in scoring at 12.8 points per game, trailing Bartlett (13.2) by one spot.
“She’s really grown exponentially, and you can see it,” Seavey said of Strandberg. “The growth from freshman year to sophomore year, it’s not only her understanding of the game but it’s physical development. She’s grown a couple of inches, and she’s a lot stronger than she was last year. She’s starting to put the pieces together and what you see is, she’s producing on the court.”
Strandberg stuffed the stat sheet in Bridgewater-Raynham’s 68-62 win over New Bedford with 16 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks on Jan. 5. The game before, a 61-48 loss to St. Mary’s, the sophomore posted a team-best 17 points, also a career-high.
In Monday’s win over North Quincy, senior Olivia Roy (4 points) netted the first basket not scored by the trio midway through the second quarter. Senior captain Cassidy Flanders, junior Ally Piecewicz and junior Katie Lambert also played well in the win.
“This is just the beginning of who we are,” Seavey added. “No high school team is a finished product right now in the season. We are certainly not. But if we work hard and continue to show intensity and commitment to the process, I’m excited what happens in the next game.”
