Wawasee’s Kylee Rostochak will be one of the area’s top players this season. (File photo by Nick Goralczyk)

SYRACUSE – With very little senior presence and a lack of overall experience on the varsity roster during the past few seasons, the Wawasee girls basketball team finally looks like it will have a strut back in its step this season.

The Lady Warriors are two years removed from one of their worst seasons, in terms of total amount of wins, in program history. Wawasee was just 2-17 in 2013-14 but improved to 7-17 last season. It was a phase of transition for sure, but that transition is reaching an end as the team returns a large number of underclassmen that saw their fair share of time on the varsity hardwood last season. Wawasee graduated just one senior in defensive stalwart Elizabeth Jackson but returns leading scorer Kylee Rostochak and a host of other key players.

Of course, the Lady Warriors had to fight through a change in the offseason schedule as the season was moved up an entire week to accommodate the boys state tournament. That left teams all around the state in a tough position as the start of basketball season was moved back into volleyball sectional week. A few Wawasee players that occupy a spot on both rosters at Wawasee could not get on to the hardwood until the team’s scrimmage last Wednesday.

Now that all girls fall sports have ended, Wawasee can get back to focusing on what it needs to fix on the basketball court. Though it has just been two weeks, Wawasee head coach Kem Zolman is already seeing an improved level of maturity from his players.

“The biggest difference that I’ve noticed is the understanding, from the girls, of what we expect and want,” said Zolman. “We’ll tell them what we’re looking for, they understand it and fix it. That’s not always been the case in the past, sometimes we don’t even see it all season because they’re mentally so young that they can’t handle that kind of stuff. This year we’re seeing the girls put a lot more education into the process and that’s pretty cool to see.”

Zolman finds himself with a unique situation as his varsity roster returns eight players and just two seniors. Rostochak is the headliner in that group, but Erin Wiktorowski joins her as the only other senior. Wiktorowski played her freshman year and proved then that she could be a threat from deep, but she has since missed the past two seasons due to injuries.

One of the biggest issues Wawasee faced last year was confidence on the offensive end of the court, that will hopefully be resolved over the course of the first half of the season with an improved supporting cast around Rostochak.

Wiktorowski has plenty of promise to improve the offensive attack. Junior Hannah Haines possesses the ability to go off on offense at any point while sophomore Aubrey Kuhn is coming into her own as a scorer at the point guard position.

Aubrey Schmeltz improved drastically towards the end of last season, her presence inside will be a much needed asset. Zolman said the junior has made even bigger leaps in the offseason. Seaquinn Bright will look to reprise her role as a rebounding machine with a mean streak for the Lady Warriors. Hannah-Marie Lamle, Kabrea Rostochak and Madison Beaman round out the list of players that return with varsity experience for Wawasee.

The Lady Warriors will compete in sectional 21 at Tippecanoe Valley. In last year’s sectional Wawasee went 1-1 in the postseason with a win over Lakeland and a 37-33 loss in the semi-finals to Whitko. The Wildcats have since dropped to class 2A. Valley won the sectional field and went on to be state runner-up. NorthWood, Fairfield and West Noble round out the six-team field.

Wawasee will begin its 2015-16 campaign Thursday night at home with Mishawaka Marian.