On October 30, the 2023-2024 season for Campolindo’s girls basketball team, both varsity and JV, was kicked off by a standard three-day tryout process. These tryouts were overseen by the new coaching staff: Head Varsity Coach Doug Cardoni and Assistant Coaches David Flick and Hilary Foster, as well as returning JV Coach Kendrick Sanders.

After a rocky 2022-2023 season for both varsity and JV, Campo’s girls basketball team was pleased to welcome the arrival of Coaches Cardoni, Flick, and Foster in April after the firings of the previous coaches. Coach Cardoni met the players a week after his hiring with the intention to introduce a new culture to the sport, and has so far been successful in uniting all players through a multitude of pre-season Open Gyms and, of course, tryouts.

“Tryouts this year have felt really informal, really casual. It pretty much started as half and half, JV and varsity, it wasn’t like one big practice, and it’s been, in previous years, tryouts have been the same thing each year. [Tryouts] were focusing on different aspects of the sport, which is pretty nice,” senior Julia Erickson-King said. Erickson-King has been a varsity player on the team since she first joined sophomore year, and has made it her priority to look after the team during her last season.

Not only did tryouts split the teams into JV: 9 and Varsity: 15, but it heralded the start of a new attitude among both groups of players. Two-year JV player, sophomore Cassidy Mintz, added her opinion on how Coach Cardoni has changed the sport for both teams, “I think he’s introduced a faster-paced game, but it’s also shorter; there’s a lot more focus on different things. The culture also feels similar because it’s mostly the same people.”

This solid community established within the team was further emphasized by Erickson-King, who summed up her last two seasons on the team by reflecting, “We’re really close-knit, really tight, and that comes from just spending time together, but then over time we choose to spend time together, like after practice. We’re family, you know?”

Both Erickson-King and Mintz have agreed that this shift in perspective was a result of Coach Cardoni’s both easygoing but intense style of play. Cardoni himself expressed his goal[s] for the season, stating, “Campolindo is a high-level academic school as well as one that supports its sports programs wholeheartedly, and I’m excited to be able to work with such impressive student-athletes and a school with such a strong academic and athletic history…I really just can’t wait to get to work.” Cardoni has had experience coaching both at Miramonte and Carondelet High School, as well as in a variety of high-level adult programs in NYC; with this experience noted, the team has put much confidence in him.

There is a lot of hope for the games ahead regarding varsity and JV alike, as expressed by both players and coaches. As Mintz enthusiastically expressed: “It’s a really great atmosphere when everyone’s just ready to rumble…The goal is to get better at basketball and [just] have fun!”