by Sophia Togneri
For the 2016-2017 school year, the basketball program will be moved from a Mid-Wachusett League Division B team down to a Division C team.
Since the program has moved up, it has suffered greatly. Neither Hudson basketball program, boys or girls, has had much success in the previous three seasons since moving up. In fact, over the last three years the basketball teams have won only 10% of their games.
Athletic Director Jessica Winders made the decision after seeing the struggles of the basketball team in recent years.
“Looking at the records over the last four seasons, and living through last year’s season, it was evident to me [that we had to make a change],” Winders said. “I put together those records for the league when I requested to be dropped down. Over the last 5 seasons, I think the girls won four games, and in that time span I think the boys won six games. [Division C] It’s where we fit. It’s where we can be competitive, and it’s where I can give our student athletes the best student athlete experience.”
The basketball team was originally a part of the C division in the Mid Wach league, but during the last realignment year in 2011-2012, the now retired Athletic Director Luis Macedo made the decision to move the program to the B division.
It is the hope of Winders that the move back to the C Division will make Hudson a more competitive basketball program. She does not want the team to dominate at that level, and she does not expect them to, but she does want them to go out and at least compete in most of their games.
“I don’t want my athletes to be demoralized on a day-to-day basis,” said Winders. “I felt like that was what was happening with the basketball programs.”
It wasn’t only the quality of game that suffered during the seasons of constant losses; the mentality of the players and the fans suffered as well.
“It’s like a cancer,” Winders explained. “We got so far removed from feeling like and believing that we could win that we were almost content and our fans were content with losing.”
“At times it is a little frustrating just because we don’t have kind of a winning mentality,” seconded boys basketball captain Jordan Poirier. “None of these guys really knows what winning feels like, especially after being brought up on varsity, and we’ve had a pretty tough three or four years.”
Winders has made some impactful changes to the program since becoming the athletic director last year, one of which was the new coaches she hired for this season. These new hires include Boys Varsity Coach Michael Notaro and Girls Varsity Coach Chiara Bubin.
“I think the coaches are a lot better this year,” Poirier said. “They did a good job picking the coaches, and I think they’re going to have a successful future.”
This is not the only change that he wants to see in the program though. Both Winders and Poirier hope that the youth programs will become more involved with the high school program in the future.
“With strong youth programs, there should be this farm system, a feeder system to the high school. That isn’t happening and hasn’t been happening for several years,” Winders said.
“I think especially in our division of schools that are more successful than us, they’ve had a sturdy travel basketball program for their youth, at least sturdier than ours, and it shows,” agreed Poirier.
It is the hope of Winders, and everybody else in the program, that these changes will make the basketball program more successful and a better experience in the future.