Leona Rexhepi looking forward to leading St. Helena girls basketball
ST. HELENA, Calif. — The past two years have been a challenge for the St. Helena Saints girls basketball team. The team wasn’t able to compete in the 2020-21 season due to pandemic restrictions. Some of the athletes on the team were able to play softball, but that was the only sport they could play due to COVID-19 limitations.
It was clear during the Saints’ first game since the 2019-20 season that the squad didn’t have much experience with one another. The Saints lost their opener to Healdsburg 54-12 on Nov. 17. But new Saints head coach Leona Rexhepi wants to move her team forward and make them more competitive.
Rexhepi is not allowing her debut loss to Healdsburg to get her down. She knows that the Greyhounds have a strong team, as they played a short season last spring and also won their first few games of the year by at least 20 points each.
“We’ve only been working for two weeks in practices so there’s not that we could have covered, but I think our effort was there,” Rexhepi said. “We just have to learn from this game.”
Rexhepi joined the St. Helena girls basketball program this year. The Saints have seen many ups and downs over the past few years. The team went 23-3 in 2009 and 21-8 a year later. But the Saints haven’t had a season with double-digit wins since 2014. The team even went 0-22 in 2015 and 2-24 in 2020.
Rexhepi is keeping the faith and knows that her team can rise and be competitive.
“They tried to encourage each other as much as they could in the game,” she said when asked about her players’ performance.
She does have plans for how she wants the Saints to compete.
“We’re trying to play man-to-man defense,” she said. “We have to know where everybody’s at and not get lost on defense when they set screens.”
Rexhepi landed her first coaching victory with the Saints on Dec. 3. The team played three games in three days in a local tournament. They lost their first game to Ferndale 80-17, but they won the second game with Summerfield Waldorf 31-22. The team then had its second-smallest margin of defeat the next day with a 32-25 loss to the California School for the Deaf.
Whatever happens next, Rexhepi will be looking forward to helping the girls on the St. Helena Saints team build their basketball skills. But it’s also about helping to establish teamwork and a positive attitude on the court.
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